The Princess and The Soldier
by Cj Spencer
Summary: "Who am I? Am I a princess that has dreamed to be a soldier, or am I a soldier that is dreaming that she is a princess?" Katyusha's stunning adventure in 1854's Russian Empire as a Romanov princess during the Crimean War.
1. Chapter 1

1

"Don't sit out in the open! Keep moving!"

From the vantage point of her T-34's turret, Katyusha was masterfully directing yet another exercise of her Sensha-Dou team, with the other crews listening to her via radio and under the watchful eye of Nonna, her faithful shadow, as usual standing by and ready to jump in at command.

But this time, Katyusha didn't have to rely on her loyal second-in-command. As a herd of deer beleaguered by wolves, the opposing tanks commanded by a second-year student kept moving inside the small village in the middle of the training field, unknowingly getting into a trap with no way out.

At the right moment, just as the enemy was hoping to have reached a defensible position at the top of a small hill, Katyusha sprang her trap, ordering an encirclement that in mere seconds trapped the opposing team in a vice grip.

The other girls attempted a half-hearted reaction, but in the end they surrendered almost immediately, to avoid at least the humiliation of being shot down as turkeys.

"The battle is over."

"Well done, commander." commented Nonna.

"But it was foregone." was Katyusha's cold reply. "The truth is that, no matter how hard I try, I can't step out of line. My tactics are always the same."

Nonna almost couldn't believe her ears.

For the first time since taking command of the team, Katyusha was beginning to doubt herself and her resources.

The Winter Cup was less than eight months' off, and as much as she tried, Pravda's command couldn't switch to a tactic different from the one she was accostumed to. It wasn't a deliberate choice; simply put, unconsciously she always reverted to the safe choice that would always bring victory, unable to force herself to consider other solutions.

And the thing was troubling her: everyone was counting on her, and this sense of impotence, barely hidden between successes that, safe for a few cases, routinely came to her team, was eating away at her.

A T-34/85 came to a stop near Katyusha's tank, and Clara's elegant figure popped out of the turret; this time, however, the young Russian girl immediately realized that her commander was in no mood for any jokes on her inability to speak Russian.

"Commander, do you wish to have another training match?"

"No, for today it's enough." answered Katyusha, glumly. "Today I don't feel like doint more. Let's get back."

"As you wish." said Nonna politely.

The tank column, of course without those that had to wait for the salvage vehicles, after being taken out, took the way home, moving through the barren plains of northern Hokkaido, coated in snow but still graced by a pleasant winter sun.

Katyusha's tank was in the lead, followed closely by Nonna's IS-2 and Clara's 85, with the second-class tanks of the kohai coming up to the rear.

It took more than an hour to sight Pravda's school carrier, safely moored inside a bay surrounded by tall cliffs that suddenly dropped straight to the sea.

Perhaps it was inexperience, perhaps it was fatality.

Before anyone could notice, the second to last tank in the column, crewed by second-year students, had the right track seize up and began to swerve. The pilot, perhaps out of fear, suddenly steered but caused the tank to spin, sending it reeling backwards almost to the edge of the cliff.

"Look out!" exclaimed Clara.

The preceding tank was quick enough to launch a towing cable, but before anyone else could do the same the seized tank disappeared behind the cliff, forcing all the other vehicles to anchor the supporting one, before it followed suit.

"Damn it, quick! Get it up!"

"We're trying, commander, but the ice does not give us enough grip!"

"I've warned the support teams, they're going to be here in a few minutes!"

At that point Katyusha jumped down her tank, going to the edge of the cliff and taking stock of the situation. The situation was degenerating quickly, with the tank precariously dangling vertically and swinging around, and the height ensured that the crew was a goner for sure, if the cable gave out.

"If you don't have a death wish, get the hell out of there!"

"We can't." said a voice inside the tank. "The hatch won't open!"

"Damn it all!"

"Commander, help will be here in three minutes!" said Nonna.

"No time for that!" And with that, Katyusha proceeded to fast-rope down the cable.

"Commander, no!"

In a few seconds, Katyusha reached the tank, climbing on the turret and going for the hatch; unable to use her full (if meager) strength to open it because of her position, she tried to force it open just with her arms.

"C'mon, open, open, you blasted thing!"

Unfortunately, her efforts proved futile, and she stopped lest she break a wrist or something.

"Listen!" she yelled at the tank commander. "We have to use force at the same time! On three, push with everything you have!"

"Alright, commander!" the girl answered from inside, scared but still in control.

"One! Two! Three!"

Katyusha almost dislodged a shoulder by using up everything she had left, but luckily this attempt worked, and the hatch popped open.

"Quick! Climb on the cable! Move it!"

The four girls took less than thirty second to get out of the tank and grab a hold of the cable; Katyusha waited till the last one was safe, before going for the cable herself and holding tight, just before the overstressed hook gave out. The T-34 plunged down into the sea, getting crushed onto the rocks before exploding with a deafening noise that raised flames and smoke, other than a tall water column.

"Commander!" screamed Nonna from above. "Are you all right?"

"What do you think? Get moving and pull!"

Unfortunately, Katyusha had never learned to climb a rope, so unlike the four girls she had just saved she had to wait for the cable to be reeled in.

But the cable had gone through too much in the last few minutes, and the other girls were too busy calming down their still traumatized friends or holding their breath, to notice that the steel fibers were giving out.

"Look out!" screamed Clara. "The cable is snapping!"

Katyusha, who had almost reached Nonna's hand stretched towards her, felt at first a violent lurch; then, before she or the others could even realize what was happening, the seemingly solid hold gave in.

"Commander!"

Said commander saw Nonna, whose face was projecting terror and disbelief, getting smaller and smaller and disappear through the air first, and then, after a devastating hit in her back that almost broke her in two, beyond the water's surface.

"Commander! Katyusha!" were the last words she heard before everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2

2

"My lady? Can you hear me?"

That sweet voice, oozing tenderness, was the first thing that Katyusha heard as her eyes fluttered open, after being close for a time that she couldn't fathom.

The reflection of her visage in a mirror was kind of revealing, almost as if she needed to look at herself in the eyes to understand who and where she was. As if a part of her had needed to convince herself in a way that dispelled each lingering doubt.

Shyly, she raised her hand to caress the elegant light blue dress, on the pleats of the skirt and the almost absent neckline, mirror of a puberty that had barely started; then she brought it to her cheeks, where a trace of makeup gave a beautiful touch to underline their shape.

Then, Katyusha's eyes wandered first on the surroundings, in the form of an opulent and luxurious bedroom with plenty of stuccoes, frescos and rich furniture, and then on the other figure reflected in the mirror, that stood above and behind her, in the shape of a motherly and kindly-looking maid with a brush in her hand.

"Nonna. What happened?"

"You feel asleep while I was brushing your hair." said the maid before resuming her work, making the brush pass smoothly through her thick and golden hair. "There is nothing to do, you are still the small girl I have known for so long. Even when you were younger you kept falling asleep when I brushed your hair."

"R-really?" answered Katyusha, blushing.

"Don't you remember? You always said that it was like having your hair brushed by an angel. And every time your words filled me with joy. For someone like me, who grew up poor, there can be no greater joy than being at your service."

"Is that so...?"

Only then Nonna noticed that Katyusha's eyes were not quite filled with the usual light, as it routinely happened every morning, with every instance of that simple and magical ritual.

"What happens, my lady? You look thoughtful to me."

"I don't know. Everything is so strange. I almost feel like I just... dreamed."

"You were asleep, after all."

"No. It was something different. It looked so... real."

"And what were you dreaming about?"

"I was... in a faraway place. With a lot of snow. And the sea. There were many people around me. They called me... Commander."

"Commander?"

"I liked to be called that. It made me feel important."

"But you are important already, my lady. Did you forget about it?"

"Not in that sense. It was something different."

"If I may, you need not to take refuge in a world of dreams to have that kind of satisfaction."

"I'm telling you, it was not like this. I trusted them, just like they trusted me. In this palace I have no companions or friends, just servants."

Hearing these words Nonna looked contrite, stopping her brushing for a moment.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it." Katyusha quickly said.

"Nothing to it." she answered, her smile returning to her face. "I cannot say I fully understand what you feel, but I believe I get an idea."

"I hate this palace, Nonna." said Katyusha, looking out of the window, trying to reach through her mind beyond what her eyes could see. "And I hate this life. There is a world out there, and I wonder if I will ever be able to look at it."

"One day, you will. One day, a young and kind lord will come here asking for your hand, and make you his queen. Who knows, maybe he'll come from a faraway place. And then you will be able to see what is out of that window with your own eyes."

"Or maybe, I'll just trade one gilded cage for another."

As she finished brushing, Nonna gently applied a touch of powder to enhance their shine, before making a bow with an elegant blue ribbon.

"You are no little bird, my lady. You are an eagle. And I shall eagerly await the day when I will be able to see you fly."

Katyusha felt her heart race as she heard these words, and just for a moment she almost managed to see herself as a majestic white eagle, free to fly at leisure, with no ties nor obligations.

In a way or another, Nonna always succeeded in raising her spirits; she was at her side since her previous nanny had passed several years before, and since then, even if neither of the two would have admitted to it in public, they had become something more than the average noble mistress and her loyal maid.

A gentle knock on the door suddenly brought them down to earth once more.

"Please forgive me, Your Highness." said a small, calm voice from the other side.

"Come in."

The door creaked open, and a maid, little more than a kid, gave a respectful bow before entering.

"Your Highness, His Imperial Majesty asked for you."

"Thank you, Nina. I'll come at once."

"Just doing my duty."

Taking another deep breath, Katyusha turned away from the mirror, and Nonna, after retrieving them from a closet, came to her with a pair of elegant milky white shoes.

"How many times do I have to repeat myself?" she huffed, as the maid kneeled before her, putting them on with such gentleness that one couldn't feel any rubbing between the shoe and the skin. "I can put them on myself."

"Then what sense would my presence here make?" replied Nonna, with a barely hidden wing. "One day you shall have no more need of me. But as of now, I beseech you, let me savor any moment that I can pass together with you."

Katyusha remained stunned for an instant, and in the end, she decided not to speak further.

* * *

Accompanied by her maid as a second shadow, Katyusha left her chambers, losing herself in the maze of rooms, hallways and salons of her family's lavish palace, a temple dedicated to the opulence, the might and the greatness of one of Europe's most revered and powerful dynasties.

As she walked, each and every person they met stood respectfully aside; men and women, nobles and servants, locals and foreigners, everyone was very careful to make a deep bow, making her feel almost uncomfortable with such exaggerated shows of submission.

Pretending as if nothing was wrong, Katyusha quickly made its way through the distance that separated her from the heart of the palace, stopping before a pair of solemn ivory-white doors, closed and guarded by two soldiers in full dress, that did not bow just because it would have been a dereliction of their duty as sentinels.

"I apologize, Your Highness, the audience is going on longer than predicted. His Imperial Majesty shall receive you as soon as it's over."

"He calls for me, and then he keeps me waiting?" huffed an upset Katyusha.

"Since when are you so eager to meet with our father?" said a sweet and calm voice, yet at the same time very feminine and full of spunk.

Katyusha's gaze turned left, just in time to see a beautiful young woman, dressed in an elegant red dress trimmed in gold, with an elaborate skirt and the shoulders white as snow left bare, walk over to her.

Her hair, as yellow as her own, shone like the purest gold, and in her green eyes one could almost gaze upon the infinite forests of the Urals.

As she took her in, Nonna respectfully bowed and turned her eyes down, and in that instant Katyusha for a moment had the feeling that the dream she had just woken up from had started anew.

"Clara." said automatically.

The young woman went up to her, towering over her petite form with her tall and graceful figure, before jokingly throwing a weak punch at her head, softened by the hair as well as the silk glove around her hand.

"Clara? What now, do you no longer know the name of your own sister?"

That instant of bewilderment disappeared as suddenly as it had come, but it left behind an unusual confusion in Katyusha's mind.

"O..." she stammered. "Olga?"

"Olishka, Olishka." she replied with a smile, and caressing the tip of her nose. "Did you forget? For you I am just Olishka."

At last the confusion disappeared totally, leaving room for pleasant memories that only the presence of a loving older sister could generate.

"Sorry, Olishka."

"Good day, Your Highness." said Nonna. "I trust you recovered from your voyage."

"Pretty much. I am not accustomed to that many hours at sea or in a coach, even though our motherland is by itself so big."

"So, then, how was Rome? And Vienna? And Prussia?" asked Katyusha, curious.

"Calm down. One thing at a time. Have patience and I'll tell you everything. Perhaps this afternoon, with a nice cup of tea."

Katyusha felt as light as a feather remembering her childhood, when her sister, already nearing her majority, used to caress her head in the same way; in those moments, even though she felt unsure if she should feel happy about it or not, Olishka in her eyes ceased to be just a sister, and became something more, someone closer to a true mother.

All of a sudden, the heavy doors opened, and a nobleman with a dress appropriate for somebody at least a governor in rank passed in between the two young girls, clumsily bent in two with such a deep bow that it was almost ridiculous.

"Thank you, Your Imperial Majesty, my Tsar, thank you from the bottom of my heart." he kept saying as he walked backwards.

Even before he disappeared, the steward struck the ground thrice with his staff to announce the next guests.

"Their Imperial Highnesses, the Grand Duchess Olga, and the Grand Duchess Ekaterina!"


	3. Chapter 3

3

Katyusha and Olga slowly strode forward, with the small steps expected from their rank, keeping their gazes fixed on their austere father, sat upon the throne at the other side of the room, under the gigantic portrait of their glorious foremother, Catherine the Great.

At his side, the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, once Charlotte of Prussia, a woman perhaps greying and with evident signs of age on her face, but still able to project an unnatural charm and the austere authority of a true Tsarina.

Not getting more than ten steps away from the throne, the two sisters exhibited a respectful curtsy, almost as if they were nothing more than common peasants to which the privilege of meeting the Tsar had been granted.

The Tsar Nicholas ran a finger through his once straw-yellow, now grizzled from age, moustache, gazing upon his daughters like a judge could before issuing the verdict.

"You may raise your heads." he proudly stated.

The girls obeyed.

"Olga."

"Father?"

"Your return to Russia has cheered both me and your mother. We have sorely missed your presence."

"Thank you, Father."

"And I hope that your voyage across Europe has been useful to you."

"It has been. And I am grateful to You for allowing me to have this experience."

"I trust that you understand that it wasn't a mere voyage of pleasure. You are almost twenty-one years old, and the proposals for your hand keep coming without pause. I am confident that you have used the time I granted you to get to know a few of your suitors."

"Yes, Father. I did indeed meet a few."

"Later you shall tell me what is your impression of them. I have no intention to give my daughter away to an imbecile or to someone unworthy of marrying a Grand Duchess of Russia. But be aware that the moment to choose a husband will come sooner rather than later."

"When the time will come, I shall be ready to do my part for the good of the Empire."

"And as of you, Ekaterina..."

Both the tone and the glare were hardly good omens, so much so that Katyusha automatically lowered her head.

"I have received less than flattering news lately. I was told, recently you have much neglected your studies. There is not a single teacher that has brought me any good news in the last three months."

"It's... that..." she stammered, unable to find either the words or the courage to answer her father.

"Unlike your sister, it looks like you are still ignorant of the responsibilities and the duties of your role.

You are a Romanov, and you are my daughter. I expect that you act like it."

The Tsar was hardly a newcomer to these lectures, yet now he looked even angrier than usual.

"What do you say to that?"

"I..." she said, biting her tongue. "I have no excuses, Father. And I beg your forgiveness."

"This time I will no longer wait for the situation to change. If it's a Spartan education that you need, so be it."

The Tsar gestured towards the guard close to the back door on the right side of the throne, and soon after that was opened, the two sisters saw a distinguished man of the cloth, roughly forty years old. The first glance seemed to confirm his non-Russian origins that his Catholic attire had indicated, for his slightly tanned skin, his curly black hair and the thick black moustache, but even though his expression and his figure didn't look neither threatening nor ominous, Katyusha felt discomfort as soon as their gazes met.

"My respects, Your Imperial Highnesses." he said in a hesitant Russian, respectfully bowing and showing a smile that, for the briefest moment, made Olga's heart beat faster.

"This man here is Padre Ansaldi from Savona, in Italy. He masters all the fields of the human knowledge. And from today, Ekaterina, he shall be your new tutor."

"My... tutor?!" she said shocked, well aware of the monarch's opinions on Western costumes and culture.

"And that's not the end of it. When the summer will end, The rest of the family and I will return to the Winter Palace. You shall remain here at Peterhof, instead, until Padre Ansaldi will bring me news of your improvements."

"What!? But, Father..."

With commendable speed Olga gave a small pull to her skirt and an eloquent gesture with her finger; once more, Katyusha had to swallow her disappointment.

"There will be no more discussion of this. Your irresponsible behavior has left me no other choice. I will leave here the essential personnel, together with a small garrison."

Just then, an attendant walked in from the back door, reaching respectfully for the Tsar.

"Your Imperial Majesty, Mr. Parson is here." he told him in a low whisper.

"Tell him I shall receive him in a few minutes."

The attendant disappeared as quickly as he appeared, followed by Padre Ansaldi as well, so the Tsar returned his attention to his daughters.

"For today this is enough. You may go. But later I wish to speak further with you, Olga. Besides, I am quite sure your mother will want to come visit you in your rooms."

"I will be available for anything that you may wish from me, Father."

Katyusha was not granted the same degree of kindness, but there was precious little to do, at that point.

Therefore, breaking the protocol like only the two of them could do without consequence, the two Grand Duchesses exited the room turning their backs on the sovereign, not without having adequately curtsied once more, however.

"Dear, may I speak honestly with you?" said the Empress, as soon as the pair was finally alone.

"As if I could forbid you."

"Aren't you a little too harsh on Ekaterina?"

"Ekaterina is my daughter, and a Romanov. And, as I already said, she seems to be utterly unable to grasp that concept."

"She is little more than a child, yet you seem to expect much from her."

"Infancy is a luxury that one cannot afford to have, when he or she is born in a family such as ours. I did understand it time ago, as did my brothers. She will as well." At that, the Tsar's eyes went down in an enigmatic way. "She has to. Because she has not much time left."

The Tsarina felt her heart clench a little.

"What do you mean?"

Nicholas paused a little, running his fingers once more between his moustaches.

"I have received news from Piedmont. The Savoy are secretly negotiating to join the Franco-British alliance. Therefore, I reached an agreement with Vittorio Emanuele: Ekaterina's hand in marriage for his son Amedeo, in exchange for Piedmont's neutrality."

"What did you do!?"

"I had no choice. Our Empire is in a dangerous and precarious position. Our only hope right now is to improve as much as possible our relationships with as many states as we can, and marriages are the easiest way to smooth things over. It's Olga's destiny, and it will be that of Ekaterina's as well."

Charlotte, as an Empress and borne of royal blood, could easily understand the matter. Unfortunately, the harsh truth was that unions among reigning couples that were driven by sincere and reciprocal love (as had been the case for her and her consort) were the exception rather than the rule, and all too often it was arranged out of mere calculations.

She understood that; but it didn't mean that she could accept that, especially if it was about her daughters.

Renewed knocking at the door avoided further discussions, and a few moments later, before the Imperial couple, another man was introduced, rather plump (if not chubby), some forty years old, with well groomed yellow hair, clad in an elegant blue suit, and showing off an expensive pocket watch.

"Your Imperial Majesties."

"Welcome, Mr. Parson."

"I find you in a very fine shape, Your Majesty. I hope that the medicine based on agave proved effective on your pains and respiratory issues."

"It was, indeed. And I thank you for that, Mr. Parson." she said in a strange way, perfectly polite but standoffish.

"That will be quite enough of chit-chat, Mr. Parson. I want to ask, why was my order not processed yet?"

"I humbly beg you to understand, Your Majesty, that the present business is quite unlike what we did in the past; this time, it's a rather sizable order, so big that Congressional approval is required."

"Then I invite you to urge for such approval."

"I am doing that without respite, Your Majesty. Yesterday I wrote a personal letter to President Pierce himself; I am confident that, with his support, this deadlock will be overcome as soon as possible."

"There are a lot of people out there in the weapons trade, Mr. Parson. I advise you, don't make me look for somebody else."

"I am very much aware of that, Your Majesty."

Once his guest had been discharged with not quite as much politeness as would have been required, the Tsar was finally able to stand up, and walk to the nearest window to savor at least some of that pleasant midsummer sun.

"In my opinion, you are far too trusting in that man, dear."

"There is no other choice, my love. Despite my words, the reality is that we are all alone, fighting the greatest powers in the world with an ill-prepared and ill-equipped army. And the United States are as of now the only partner in which we can hope to count on, to try and turn the tide of this accursed war."


	4. Chapter 4

4

As scion of the highest Russian nobility, Katyusha mastered several of the activities expected of someone of her rank, despite her young age: she was a good rider, could use a bow, and knew a few notions of fencing.

All things that several other young princesses from all over Europe surely were not very well acquainted with, but with parents like hers it was logical for her to grow with the purity of a gem and the blood of a soldier.

Besides, thanks to her surroundings' multilingual nature, other than Russian she could fluently speak German and Polish, as well as understanding decently the French and Turkish languages.

But, considering any other topic, the situation became dramatic, and it reached the bottom when anything concerning sciences of any kind and degree became involved.

Put very simply, Katyusha couldn't get into her head any notion involving formulae, numbers or scientific stuff, either out of difficulty of organizing such logical things, or out of lack of interest for it.

Unfortunately, as if for a perverse punishment, the scientific subjects were precisely what Padre Ansaldi insisted on starting from day one, likely out of explicit instruction from the Tsar.

Each day, at nine o'clock, the priest reached Katyusha in her personal studio near her bedroom, and there they remained for quite a good part of the morning, while in the other rooms Nonna, Nina and the other servants tidied up.

Most of the times the lesson began with the request, or rather the order, from Padre Ansaldi to solve some tasks written on the blackboard, and each time for the princess it was like facing the firing squad.

There were times when she would have rather faced a horde of furious cossacks than solve yet another equation; and that was just the last of a long line in the last period.

Unable to find a sense in what she read or wrote down, Katyusha did her best to try and solve the simple expressions that Padre Ansaldi had written down before her arrival, understanding from the look of the priest's face that her solutions were far, far removed from the proper ones.

"Your Imperial Highness." he commented, wiping on the round lenses, rigorously worn only for the lessons. "Begging license to be completely honest, I am afraid that arithmetic is by far not Your forte."

"I just hate numbers." she protested, puffing her cheeks. "They are so dull and so stupid. And useless. They have no meaning."

"Do not be so harsh, Your Highness. Truly, numbers can tell us many a thing, if we are able to listen. A great philosopher and scientist called Galileo claimed that numbers were nothing short of the alphabet in which God has written the universe."

"Strange words, especially pronounced by a holy man. The monks around here would likely call you blasphemous."

Padre Ansaldi hesitated a moment: the voices on the Grand Duchess Ekaterina's unusually determined and mature personality were hardly exaggerated, after all.

"We can be men of faith and at the same time believe in the power of math and sciences."

"Aren't the two things mutually exclusive?"

"Only for the fools and for those who reason in absolutes. I like to consider myself prone to curiosity and discovery. And according to what I heard, the same could be said for You."

"Perhaps." smiled a resigned Katyusha. "But even if it were true, I wonder how could I satisfy such passions imprisoned in here, and with this lifestyle imposed on me."

The priest couldn't help but notice how the Grand Duchess' gaze would often fall upon the corner of the room where a mannequin stood, engulfed by an exquisite uniform of a Winged Hussar, a gift from the Governor of Poland.

"Very well, I believe that for now we can leave math alone." he said, rising from behind the desk. "But perhaps I have what you need to reawaken Your interest."

After fumbling in his voluminous bag for a while, the holy man pulled out one of his numerous volumes, dropping not without a hint of a smile before his pupil, as she returned to her place.

"What is this?"

"Look for Yourself."

Almost with unusual shyness, Katyusha lifted the hand-bound cover, and after turning a few pages she found herself behind a world that tasted like a fable to her: everywhere a lot of maps and sketches, glosses and handwritten notes, all surrounded by drawings of foot soldiers, riflemen, artillery and even sections of fortifications.

"What is it?"

"It's a copy of the _Vom Kriege_, a treaty on war and strategy redacted by a Prussian general, Carl von Clausewitz, and commented by General Mezzacapo, from Piedmont."

Her eyes filled with awe at the sight of such a treasure. And she would have immediately started to devour each and every page, had Padre Ansaldi not pulled it out of her all of a sudden, as quickly as he had dropped it beforehand.

"Give it back now!" she shrieked, vainly trying to grab it from the unreachable hands of the priest, like a child protesting for some sweets denied to him.

"What would You say if we were to make a deal?" said the holy man with a smile.

"A deal?!"

"For each task You solve correctly, I will allow You to read and study one page of this book, as well as those of several others that I will be able to retrieve.

Furthermore, for each day that You will dedicate yourself to Your studies with conviction, we will spend half an hour to the study of military arts."

"It doesn't seem very fair to me." protested Katyusha, puffing once more. "Like this, I'll get at most two hours and a half each week."

"What if we were to use those two hours and a half in lieu of the math lesson of Friday?"

Hearing that, the young girl bounced back twice, and thinking it over it was difficult to say what promise made her happier.

"This is more like it." she smirked. "So, do we have a deal?"

"We have a deal." said Padre Ansaldi. "Now, however, enough with arithmetic. Let's get started with Geography."

* * *

And the deal worked.

Even though solving the exercises and following most of the lessons was worse than having her teeth pulled, the thought of being allowed to do something that really interested her made Katyusha try her very best, and surpass her own limits.

With lots of sweat and blood, even the most complicated notions finally began to stick into her head, making studying no less intense, but much more tolerable.

And although a few times the fatigue and discouragement had prevailed, Padre Ansaldi was always ready to pull out his book when needed, granting her pupil a few moments of peace before returning to the task at hand.

And then, at last, the Friday was upon them.

After lunch, routinely prepared in that very room to allow the Grand Duchess not to distract herself from her work even for a minute, Math, Arts, History and Geography were left behind for at least two hours, leaving room for the infinite and magnificent secrets of the art of war and of battles.

Out of that topic, nothing looked to Katyusha less than marvelous, and she absorbed it with great ease: from the descriptions of various equipment to tactical doctrine, from planning to the lives of the great generals of the begone ages, everything tasted as a great discovery that would never leave her sated.

"I must admit I am quite impressed." said one day Padre Ansaldi. "I was told You were special, but I was not quite expecting that such topics would be of interest to You."

"Actually" she said, somewhat embarrassed but without dropping her smile. "I don't know why I have such peculiar interests. I could not even say when I started to have them. It just came to me."

"Some say that passions are a thing of the blood. And nobody could say that war is something foreign to Your family. Who knows, perhaps your forefathers passed onto you the propensity for the military arts."

"Arts that I will be able to study, but truth to be told, in reality I wonder whether I'll ever be able to put into practice." was the answer of a saddened Katyusha. "But so be it, for now this is enough for me."

All of a sudden, from the open window that watched over the courtyard came a solemn fanfare that caused the Grand Duchess to jump up, stunned.

It was well known that each member of the Imperial family had his or her own melody to announce its arrival in the palace, and that one had not been heard from such a long time that Katyusha thought she was dreaming it.

As agile as a cat, she went to peek out of the window, just in time to see an elegant black coach bordered of gold getting through the main gate and slowly making its way on the driveway, sharply saluted by the guards arrayed for the occasion.

"I can't believe it, he's back!" she exclaimed.

Then, fearing no rebukes nor punishments, she flew out of the room and down the stairs, weaving in and out of the servants and other guests, with the happiest expression that some had ever seen on her face.

Just as she had passed the main doors, the coach was being stopped before the monumental staircase before the doors.

"What are you doing here?" asked Olishka, awaiting the new arrival herself. "Our father had forbidden you from getting out of your lessons."

"He does not need to know." she answered, with a wink. "And you won't tell him, will you?"

"Of course not."

At last, a servant went and opened the door of the coach, and before the two girls emerged from it an elegant young man with dark hair, wearing a black dress uniform sprinkled with medals and embroidered in gold.

"His Imperial Highness" said the announces, as solemnly as he got. "His Imperial Highness the Tsesarevich, Grand Duke Alexandr Nikolaevic!"

"Brother!" shrieked Katyusha.

The newcomer had barely the time to kneel before she crashed into his arms, hugging as hard as she could and at the same time shedding tears of genuine joy.

"Brother! You're back! I was so worried about you!"

"It's good to see you again, Ekaterina. Forgive me for not managing to write all this time."

"It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter! What matters is that you're here."

After several minutes the prince was finally able to convince Katyusha to let him go, allowing him to greet his other beloved sister.

"Welcome back, brother."

"Thank you, Olga. I was told you had returned to Saint Petersburg. How were all these months away from home?"

"Hardly dull." the Grand Duchess said, before her expression darkened. "But not as much as yours, I am afraid."

At that point, even Aleksandr's mood shifted, as his deep blue eyes filled with much disquiet.

"Unfortunately so."

"Were you called by our father?"

"No, I asked to be received, myself. There are many things that ought to be discussed."

A honour guard reached the doors just then, making for the three princes.

"If you wish, you may come with us, Your Highness. Your father awaits you."


	5. Chapter 5

5

Unusually, Tsar Nicholas did not receive his son Alexandr in the throne room, but in the more withdrawn writing room; together with them was General Gorčakov, leading commander of the Imperial army, other than personal advisor and right-hand man of the monarch.

The prince, once inside, was very careful to verify that nobody was around, before closing the door, and the very Tsar gave sharp orders not to let anybody all along the corridor.

"Welcome back, son." he began, when they were certain to be alone and with no ears listening in.

"Thank you, father."

Neither of them, except very rare circumstances, could be defined a champion of expansiveness and cheerfulness, but that day the tone of their conversation was, if possible, even darker and impersonal than usual.

"So? Is it true what you wrote me in your last letter? Is the situation so critical?"

"Unfortunately it is, father. The British have received reinforcements. Last week three ships have unloaded onto the beach a hundred brand new heavy guns and two thousand men, in addition to foodstuff and equipment. They already have full control of the coast near Malachov and have cut it off, while starting to bombard it."

"How are our numbers right now?"

"For the moment we are about thirty-five thousand, between trained soldiers, militia and sappers. To these, we must add the crews of the fleet commanded by Admiral Nachimov."

"What of the status of the fleet?"

"As of now they are able to defend the harbour with no great issue. The Admiral insisted on an attack to try and cut the supply lines of the enemy, but I convinced to concentrate on defensive duties."

"You did the right thing. We can't afford any suicidal heroism at this moment."

"However, the general situation doesn't change. And with just my forces, we surely don't have the strenght or the numbers to relieve by ourselves the siege that they are holding around the city."

The Tsar as usual ran his hand through his moustaches, taking a few erratic steps in the room with a worried expression, while his son and the general looked on silently.

"Can we send more troops?"

"Unfortunately, Your Imperial Majesty" answered Gorčakov, "right now most of our army is deployed along the northern and western borders of the Empire. We await at any moment a naval attack in Finland or at the Solovetskij, while weakening our border defenses in the west could entice Austria to enter the alliance and attack us herself."

"What about the Caspian division?"

"We can mobilize and send it towards Sevastopol, but it will take time."

"How much?"

"Four months." was the almost mortified answer of the general.

The Tsar again disturbed his moustache, letting all his nervousness get through.

"Do you believe that your units can hold on till then?"

"In nighttime we patch up the damage suffered in daytime, but the situation is becoming more and more precarious. And even though we are still able to get through, it's just a matter of few weeks, then Sevastopol will be truly under siege."

"And that's why I wish for you to remain here, Alexandr. Nachimov and the others will be more than enough to defend the city until the reinforcements come."

"Father, those are my men. I can't abandon them like this."

"You are my son, and my heir. Your mother would die for sure knowing that you were there, with the knowledge that you might not come back."

"They have faith in me, father. They await for me to come back to lead them. I humbly beg you."

If there was one thing that Alexandr had taken after his father, was his stubbornness, as well as his ability to worry for the life and the well-being of his soldiers.

So, he was forced to give in.

"Alright, boy. But for God's sake, be careful, and don't take pointless risks. The last thing I wish to do is to tell your mother that the next time she'll see you again will be inside a coffin."

"I won't, father. You have my word."

The Tsesarevich at that point left the room, leaving the Tsar and his general alone.

"Now, realistically, how long to send troops to Sevastopol?"

"Six months, I'm afraid, Your Majesty."

"You have three." the sovereign snapped at him with red-blood eyes. "And if he dies, I will bury you with him."

* * *

Katyusha had fervently hoped to be able to pass some time with her beloved brother, and for that it was incredibly painful to see him leave after just a day's stay.

The worried glance with which Olishka bid farewell from Alexandr told her that something really serious was brewing, but as a teenager, little more than a child, she did not fully understand what her siblings and father were hiding from her.

Sure, she knew that her country was at war with Europe's mightiest powers, but the political and military issues were hardly things that those in the know found proper to talk about with a little girl. Perhaps that was why she was so desperate to know about war and its rules: to get a grip on her own destiny, and to know what could await her and her family in the years to come.

As the time passed on, she realized more and more how the most part of the Russian officers at the service of her family were, generously speaking, allergic to the tactical and forward-looking notions that instead were all the rage in the rest of Europe. The good ol' times of her ancestors Piotr and Ekaterina in her eyes were long gone, and the Great Russia, from a nation able to impose its power and prestige in the eyes of the whole world, was turning into the pale shadow of itself.

As if that were not enough, less than a week after Alexandr left, the Tsar opted to prematurely end the summer stay, ordering the family and the whole court back to the Winter Palace, and from there, in a few days' time, to Moscow, obviously not counting Katiusha herself, her tutor and a handful of guardians and servants.

And so it was that, all of a sudden, Katyusha ended up alone, so to speak, with no other company except that of Nonna, Nina and a few other handmaids.

And of course there was padre Ansaldi with his lessons; at first Katyusha had entertained the idea that, with her father absent, the lessons would know a drop, but any hope about that was dashed by the knowledge that, in any case, the Tsar would be _au courant_ in any case.

Therefore, at least for her, everything kept going like it had always gone, with just the three weekly hours of war didactics helping her with the frustration of those summer days that Katyusha was forced to let go before her nose without being able to enjoy them.

Two such weeks passed.

At least the end of August was upon them, and in a short while Katyusha herself would likely have to relocate, if not in Moscow, at least in the more comfortable Winter Palace.

Even the nights were beginning to get longer, and the isolation of the palace contributed to the complete silence that, when the sun set, often fell upon it.

One evening, the first that she was allowed to spend dining in the main dining room together, at least, with her subjects, instead of being relegated in the loneliness of her room, Katyusha got up enough courage and, carefully avoiding to be seen, snuck in her father's library, beginning her candlelight search for any books relating to war.

She found a lot of them, more than she could read in a lifetime, and after collecting those that looked more intriguing to her, she brought them in her old bedroom, back when she was a child, beginning to avidly read them.

She was sure that nobody would come and look for her there, in a place long forgotten even in the collective mind of the servants; but she hadn't thought about her personal watchdog.

"Grand Duchess." said Nonna, opening the door. "I thought you were in bed already. The servants are looking everywhere for you. Please come with me."

"C'mon, Nonna!" she protested, clutching the book she was reading. "Just a few more pages!"

"You know the rules. Light off by eleven."

"I beg you."

The huge, blue eyes of the princess were, as usual, a devastating weapon, against which no defense could hold; especially if they lingered onto you, full of a lovable plea, like those of a puppy looking for a bit of love.

"Very well. But just one more hour, then, bedtime."

"Thanks!" exclaimed Katyusha, smiling.

Nonna would have liked to stay with her, but she knew that Katyusha would have taken that as a lack of trust in her; besides, as the new chief of the staff directly appointed by the Tsar, there were a lot of things requiring her attention, before she herself could go to bed.

"I'm going to do a few chores." she told Nina after she closed the door. "You make sure that she gets to bed in an hour."

"Are you sure that she'll listen to me? When she's lost into something she likes she barely listens to you."

"Don't worry, she'll obey. She may be a bit of a tomboy, but Her Highness is just a child, in the end."

"Easy for you to say. Surely you would not be sent before a firing squad of mounted Cossacks."

* * *

Two hours later, with the palace and the surrounding countryside filled with silence, some curious shadows emerged from the nearby river.

Quietly, five figures in black cloaks jumped over the tall fence, and thoroughly hidden by the patrols going around in the garden made for the palace, managing to get inside through a window of the salon unwisely left open.

Almost skipping over the floor, helped by the carpets to further cushion their steps, they made their way up the stairs, or rather, they jumped over them with almost superhuman acrobatics, getting in the wing of the private rooms of the Tsar's children.

A couple of soldiers was guarding the doors to the rooms of Grand Duchess Katyusha. Two of the intruders were upon them like angels of death, shutting them up and cutting their throats before they could realize anything. The assassins first hid the bodies behind some heavy bronze vases, then they signaled to their companions, that slithered out of the shadows and came closer.

The five exchanged a reciprocal nod before passing the door, with the two assassins remaining outside, ready to silence once and for all any potential undesirable witness.

Once in the antechamber, the other tree took a quick look around, then as the others seathed their swords, grabbing some ropes and blindfolds instead, the third one silently brought his hand on the bedroom door, opening it without making any noise.


	6. Chapter 6

6

The three intruders froze, visibly lost, when they took notice that the bed was empty.

The sheets were still unmoved, the pillows untouched, and there was no trace of Grand Duchess Ekaterina.

The cause for this unexpected situation became clear in a few minutes' time, when their two comrades left to guard the floor heard some light footsteps come closer.

"Oh, dear." said Nina, coming round the corner, while trying to hold up a half asleep Katyusha and to keep high with her other hand the oil lamp. "Waiting for you, I ended up falling asleep myself. If I don't hurry and put you to bed now, Miss Nonna will have words with me."

When the two groups ended up in face of one another, for an instant silence reigned absolute.

"Who are you?" she worriedly asked. "What are you doing here?"

Then, her light showed two grim-looking figures in cloaks, with high collars to cover their faces, and, more importantly, armed with curved swords, and the worry turned to terror.

"Help!" the little girl shrieked as loud as she could, waking Katyusha up as well. "Guards!"

Luckily for them, a couple of soldiers were by chance nearby, during their patrol.

"Hey, you!" they yelled, running for them.

The two aggressors avoided the bullets with surprising agility, and even though one of the guards was able to stab one of them with his bayonet as he was about to jump him, his companion instead had no problems in cutting the throats of both soldiers.

"What's happening here?" yelped Katyusha.

"This way, Your Highness, quickly!" said Nina, dragging her away.

The surviving intruder could only see them disappear in the dark, immediately going after him. But unfortunately for him and the others, the surprise had by then disappeared, and after a few seconds the bells in the tower woke up everyone within two miles.

At that, the whole palace turned upside down.

"Alert! Intruders!"

"They're looking for Her Highness!"

"Surround the palace!"

The three men still in the bedroom, understanding that the situation was slipping out of control, broke through the closest window and landed in the very courtyard, but were immediately spotted by some soldiers. Not without difficulty, and with one of them nursing a forearm mangled by a point-blank bullet, they managed to eliminate six opponents, and disappear in three different directions afterwards.

"Don't let them escape!" ordered the company leader, a young lieutenant no older than thirty. "There could be more! Look everywhere!"

"Shouldn't we try and capture one alive, Your Excellency?" one of his men suggested.

"We'll think about it later! Right now the priority is protecting Her Highness! Move it!"

The first interloper somehow managed to slip through the guards thanks to a few smoke bombs that he dropped while fleeing, but when he was just about to pass over the outer fence he ended up in the sights of a sharpshooter posted on the roof; hit right in the chest, he only managed two more steps before being finished off at bayonet point.

The second one, after looking for a safe place in the woods near the Monplaisir, managed to climb up a tree, evading his pursuers just in time.

"Did you find him?" asked the soldiers while they huddled behind the same tree, unaware that their target was right above them.

"No, still nothing."

"Look harder! He must be around here!"

The intruder held still until he was sure he was once more alone, then he jumped down the tree and was about to resume his escape, when a threatening shadow come out of nowhere stood before hi.

Almost as if aware that the newcomer had no intention of letting him go, and that trying to boot it was useless, the aggressor unsheathed his sword once more, and after a studying glance he went for the opponent. The latter, however, proved surprisingly agile, perhaps even more than him, managing to avoid any slash like a ghost, or like an incorporeal being impossible to strike down.

The clash lasted for a mere twenty seconds, during which the assassin was repeatedly wounded in several parts of his body by thin daggers, just a few inches long, as quick as bullets, and it ended when he, in the final attempt to slay his enemy rather than admit defeat, threw himself into a ferocious frontal attack, only to end up with one of those daggers stuck right in the middle of his forehead, dead as a doornail.

Meanwhile, the last of the three, the one with a wounded arm, had been able to sneak through the central canal without being seen, reaching the pier where a small rowboat was awaiting for him.

"The plan has failed. Quick, let's get out of here."

His accomplice seated in the boat, however, showed no reaction, and it was after a few moments that the assassin realized that he was talking to a corpse, its cut throat still bleeding. The terror of seeing his chances of survival taking an unexpected, severe drop was augmented by that he felt when he sensed that someone was behind him.

He suddenly turned.

"You?!" he blurted, eyes wide. "What does this mean? You told us we wouldn't meet any problems."

But then, his eyes got even wider, if possible.

"What are you doing? Wait! They told us you were with us! This was your plan! No, please! No!"

* * *

Meanwhile, the lone survivor was still looking for Nina and Katyusha inside the royal residence.

Even though the whole palace was swarming with soldiers, the intruder incredibly managed to remain hidden, at times even clinging to the roof, while the guards in the dark passed under him none the wiser.

"Look for Her Highness!"

"Turn the whole palace upside down!"

"Find him!"

Loathe to renounce to his mission without trying everything to execute it, the man waited to be alone once more to resume following the tracks of his prey.

As a bloodhound smelling a cornered prey, he managed to follow the Grand Duchess and her handmaid to a remote wing of the palace, stopping before the anonymous door of a closet for the servants. Obviously it was locked, but it took just a bit of effort with a picklock to take care of that; however, as soon as the door slammed open, someone hiding behind it tried to attack him, swinging a heavy wooden beam.

"Your Highness, run, now!"

Unfortunately, considering how tiny and weak Nina was, it was child's play for the intruder to grab the beam and slam the girl against the wall.

And as this happened Katyusha, cowering in a corner, froze out of sheer terror, while that black and ominous figure came closer and closer.

"Keep away from the Grand Duchess, you dog!" shrieked Nina, throwing at him everything her hand could find in the dark. "Guards! Guards!"

This time, the poor girl received for her troubles a kick so strong that she flopped to the ground, dazed, and the intruder was now free to focus only on Katyusha.

The princess found him before her, as a monster out of a children's book, about to grab her with those enormous hands smelling of spices.

"Highness!"

The assassin was barely able to avoid the lunge of the young Lieutenant; at first he tried to take care of him once and for all, but the boy turned out to be better with a sword than predicted, so the enemy had to decide and try to escape. Unfortunately for him, the few seconds he had lost had been enough for a group of soldiers to place themselves between him and the exit, boxing him in.

One of them instinctively fired, hitting him in a leg, but the intruder nonetheless lunged for him with a beast-like fury, killing him with a slash.

"Fire! Kill him!"

With that, the opponent took no less than five more bullets all over his body, and after attempting a last, doomed stand, he died once and for all, stabbed in the throat by the Lieutenant.

"The danger is over." the youngster stated, as soon as he was certain that the target was dead. "Your Highness, are you alright?"

Katyusha did not answer that, instead shivering like a leaf, her eyes never leaving the ground.

"Your Highness!" Nonna blurted out, coming in at that moment.

The way she hugged her was worthy of a mother to whom the birth of her daughter had just been announced.

"Thank God you are fine. I am sorry. I was sleeping so soundly that I wasn't aware of anything. If something had happened to you, I..."

Understanding that for her liege it was better to get to bed, Nonna convinced Katyusha to come back to her rooms; before leaving the closet, however, the princess once more stared at the lifeless body of her aggressor, riffled with bullets and within a pool of his own blood.

For the first time ever, she saw Death before her very eyes.

* * *

The palace was thoroughly searched, more than once, until it was ascertained that no more intruders were hiding somewhere inside it.

Then, the officers of the garrison and a group of servants met on the balcony in the rear.

"Everything's in order, Your Excellency." said the Lieutenant to Captain Michailov. "No enemies left. The guards dealt with three of the intruders, the other two are still missing. They have likely fled."

"Well done, Lieutenant Yerematev. I am sure this will earn you a nice promotion. As for me, I think instead that running would do. As soon as the Tsar will know of this, he'll have my head."

"This is not the time to think about that." Nonna interrupted him. "Are you certain that Her Highness is now safe?"

"Her current room has no windows, and there are ten soldiers watching the doors." said Yerematev. "I dare anybody to try and get in."

"Anyway, who the hell were they?"

"Perhaps I could answer that." said a voice that caught everybody's attention.

A moment later, Padre Ansaldi showed up on the balcony's stairs, weighed down by his burden, a corpse that he dropped on the floor with the true care of a holy man, in the middle of the group.

"What about this?" asked the commander.

"I found him near the Monplairis where I lodge, with a knife in his head. Perhaps his own companions did that, to facilitate their own escape."

The priest then uncovered the face of the man under the collar; like the others, his features were Central Asian, similar to those of the Chinese, but with a curious tanned, almost mixed skin, barely noticeable mustaches, bulging eyes and thin lips.

However, there was something even more interesting that left everybody speechless; a light blue half-moon and star tattoo at the base of his neck.

"Uyghurs." said Yerematev.

"What in the world are they doing around here?"

"Mercenaries, probably." was Padre Ansaldi's comment. "For the right price, they follow anybody."

"You seem to know a lot of things." said the Lieutenant, almost cryptically. "Perhaps even too many, for a priest."

"A missionary, to be precise. Believe me, in my lifetime I have seen too many things for me to talk about. Among which were the Uyghurs' skills. These were no rabble, but trained warriors. Whoever recruited them, surely paid a small fortune."

"Too bad we couldn't capture one of them alive." commented the commander. "We could have interrogated him."

"Perhaps the others are still around." said Yerematev. "Perhaps if we look well enough..."

"You won't find anything, only more corpses."

Again, an unexpected voice captured everybody's attention, but this time the very figure who had spoken left everyone shocked.

"Mr. Parson!?" said Nonna. "What are you doing here?"

"I came by boat from Petersburg. A ship with supplies is inbound, and I wished to verify the cargo's quality before delivering it."

That said, the fat American made a gesture, and three men in civvies, but whose military being could be seen a mile away, dropped on the floor two more corpses, this time soaking wet. And their black clothes made it immediately clear who it was.

"We found them floating in the sea at less than half a mile away from here. Whoever hired them made sure that he remained unnamed."

"It does seem strange to move out for inspections at this hour." was Nonna's acid observation. "Are you sure you are telling us everything?"

"I will forget I heard anything. It is in my best interests to have a good relationship with His Imperial Majesty. Why should I try and kidnap His daughter?"

"I would advise to postpone any subsequent discussion after we all take a few hours' rest." said Padre Ansaldi in a calm, conciliatory tone. "Right now what matters is that Her Highness is safe." Then he turned to the commander. "I'd guess you already took steps to inform the Tsar."

"Of course. I immediately sent a courier with adequate escort. By tomorrow morning he'll be back already."

"Good. With that, and the increased surveillance, I believe that for tonight we'll be able to sleep tight, don't you?"

Indeed, everyone agreed that it was pointless to throw around accusations and ill-founded suspicions, so it was convened to close down for the night and go their separate ways.

Before Nonna could start towards her own room, however, a hand dropped on her shoulder.

"You have a moment?" the same Padre Ansaldi whispered to her "We need to talk".


	7. Chapter 7

7

Padre Ansaldi brought Nonna in a secluded spot of the palace gardens, and from his worried look the girl immediately realized that the priest had not quite shared everything he thought in the previous meeting.

Reaching a small clearing among the trees, Ansaldi looked around once more, almost to be sure not to have been sure.

"So, do you want to tell me what's the problem?"

"You are the person whom the Grand Duchess trusts more." he said with unusual seriousness. "I heard that you are almost a sister for her."

"And what could this mean?" she replied, in an offended tone.

"Calm yourself, and please try not to misunderstand me. I guess you know well almost everyone who associates with her."

"I think so." Nonna answered, in a calmer and more conciliatory tone. "What of it?"

"Before His Excellency left for Petersburg, I casually overheard a conversation with General Gorčakov. It looks like the Tsar had received knowledge about a member of his family being targeted by enemy agents."

At that, Nonna's eyes widened out of consternation.

"What?!"

"At first I thought it was merely a worried father's paranoia for his children. But it does look like that his fears were justified."

But then, a rather peculiar thought went through the mind of the young maid.

"As far as I know His Imperial Majesty, I can say one thing for sure. He does not allow prying ears to snoop into his private conversations that easily." she said, almost smirking. "If said ears did not belong to somebody so shrewd to elude his suspicions.

I am beginning to wonder who you truly are. Are you a true priest?"

"If needed." he smiled. "Today I am a holy man, yesterday I was a valet. As for tomorrow, who knows."

"Then?"

"My name is not Ansaldi. Captain Giuseppe Govone, secret agent of His Majesty Vittorio Emanuele II of Savoy."

"A Piedmontese agent?!"

Nonna looked like she was one second away from calling for the guards at the top of her lungs, but the good-natured, almost sly gaze of the alleged priest stopped her.

"What is a spy of the Savoys doing here in Russia?"

"Not a spy. At least, not completely. Simply put, I am a bodyguard."

"What?!"

"The Grand Duchess Ekaterina is promised to our Prince Amedeo. His Majesty Vittorio Emanuele sent me here in secret to guarantee her safety."

"Promised?!"

"My task is to keep her safe until the Tsar will send her to Turin to marry our prince. I thought that a priest and a tutor could easily gain her father's trust, and I could always remain close."

"So, that Uigur in the woods..."

"No, that was not my doing. I am a spy, not a soldier. My weapons are information. And that's why I chose to reveal myself to you."

"I am afraid I cannot follow."

"Right now you and me are the closest persons to the Grand Duchess. If we cooperate, sharing what we know, it will be easier to protect her, especially in light of this situation."

"What do you mean?"

"It's very simple." said Padre Ansaldi, or rather Captain Govone, looking grim and worried. "Outside the Tsar's court and the people here now, nobody knew that the Grand Duchess was still here at Peterhof. The Tsar does not like rumors and gossip about his family's issues, so he gave severe orders not to talk to anyone about this. And you know well what happens to those who disobey his orders."

At that point, it was easy for Nonna to do the math.

"You mean..."

"Exactly." Ansaldi replied, turning to look at the palace. "There's a mole in this place."

* * *

As predicted, the courier returned to Peterhof even before the sun rose.

The Tsar must have received quite the scare, because the peremptory order for Katyusha and his entourage was to immediately get back to Petersburg, just in time to reunite with the rest of the family in the return voyage to Moscow.

That very afternoon, protected by an impressive escort worthy of the monarch himself, the coach with the Grand Duchess, her trusted maid and her tutor left the summer residence of the Romanov bound for Petersburg, closely followed by the non-essential staff.

The whole way, Katyusha did not utter a single word, still far too shaken from that night's happenings. The sight of that body had had a tremendous impact on her, but at the same time it had lit something inside of her: something that looked a lot like awareness.

In wartime, people died; she had never thought about that little fact during the time spent reading on battles and generals, at least thought with a bit of intensity or mindfulness.

She had made a conscious effort to look at just the "romantic" side of that topic that had enraptured her so much, the side made of stalwart generals, masterful decisions and triumphant campaigns, forgetting that, however, behind those grand victories and disastrous defeats there were men and soldiers dead by the thousand.

To acknowledge and accept that consideration was the duty, but at the same time the burden, of each leader of men, and it was something that she herself would have to learn to accept if she wished to become, one day, an authority on the topic.

All these thoughts kept her quiet the whole way, until the voyage ended in the gateway of the Winter Palace.

Exceptionally, the Tsar and his consort had come out to welcome back their youngest daughter, and even before the Grand Duchess had climbed down the coach, her mother ran to her, hugging her sweetly with teary eyes.

"My daughter! My little kitty! May God be thanked!"

"Alexandra, please." her husband reproached her, as cold and unflappable as ever. "Not here, before the servants."

But this time she completely ignored him, keeping Katyusha firmly between her arms under the relieved and almost happy gazes of Nonna and Padre Ansaldi, that met for a brief instant. And just after that, to her mother's hug was added even that of her sister Olishka, come running and still informally dressed, eager more than ever to grab onto her little sister.

"I am happy to see that you are safe and sound, Ekaterina." said her father, when mother and sister finally let her go. "I believe it was a terrible night for you. You may go and rest. I must speak about a few things with your tutor."

Katyusha did not wait for him to repeat himself, and after a relaxing bath, a light meal – unusually spent together with her sister and her young brothers Nicolaj and Mikhail – she immediately went to bed, overcome in a few minutes by an invincible tiredness.

* * *

The transfer to Moscow came sooner than predicted.

No later than three days from Katyusha's arrival at the Winter Palace, the personal train of the Imperial Family had left Petersburg with the whole Romanov family, the most trusted servants and a few members of the entourage on it, preceded and followed closely by the more modest vehicles that transported respectively the other staff and the other members of the court.

Many considered unusual the transfer of the Tsar and his family to Moscow in such an inopportune season: the summer was by then dying out, and it wouldn't be much longer before the unforgiving climate of the old capital would force Nicholas to abruptly order to backtrack.

As nobody outside a very few chosen ones had any idea of what had gone down at Peterhof, the common theory held that the Tsar wanted to move a bit closer to the heart of the Empire, where it would have been easier to administrate the various scenarios caused by the conflict with the Ottomans and their European allies. Others instead believed that even Petersburg was no longer safe by then, with the British fleets that kept growing bolder and bolder in their sweeps of the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic Sea.

But all this beliefs and ideas on the more active participation of the Tsar to the ongoing conflict turned to dust when, upon its arrival, the Imperial Family shut itself up inside the Kremlin; the scarce visits in the city became even more sparse, almost to the point of being discontinued, and the garrison, imposing by itself, was even reinforced. Even the members of the government and the counsellors were forbidden to leave, turning that enormous fortress almost into a state within a state, entry upon whom was forbidden to anyone.

Roughly, ten days had passed from the arrival in Moscow, when Katyusha was summoned by her father in the throne room.

Alone, this time.

She showed up as she always did, performing a respectful curtsey, immediately noticing however that her parent's gaze was softer and less irritated than usual.

"Padre Ansaldi was full of praise for you. It seems that you have at least decided to seriously engage in your studies."

"He is a great teacher, Father. I owe him much."

"I don't want to know how he managed to get into your head the ability to study, I don't care about it. What matters is that I can finally see within you a Romanov worthy of this name, and for now it's enough."

"I thank you for your words." said the young girl, her mind however filled with something else.

"Now, I believe it would be unjust on my part not to reward your efforts.

From now on, the constraints placed upon you are lifted. You can take walks and move freely inside the palace and within the walls, moreover you will be allowed to dine with the whole family. The lone remaining obligation are the five hours per day that you will dedicate to studying."

"Thank you, Father."

"But let me be clear, there won't be any indulgence. If the results were to drop again, everything will return as it was. Is that understood?"

"By all means, Father. I shall not disappoint you."

"Very well. You may go."

The Grand Duchess at that point curtsied again and went for the door, but just before crossing the doorstep two words rolled out of her tongue: words that until a few moments before she had never dreamed to spell, and never towards her father.

"Arrogant bastard." she whispered through her teeth.

* * *

She was cold.

She felt her mouth dry and open, as if a tube were shoved into it, not allowing her to close her mouth; the nose itched so much as well, but she couldn't touch it.

Really, she couldn't do anything. It was as if she was chained down and gagged in a dark room.

The only thing that she got was that she was laying on his back, and under it she felt something soft and hard at the same time; like a leather mattress.

She felt alone and powerless. She wanted to scream, to struggle, to try and escape: but it was all pointless.

But then, trying her best to focus, she thought she could feel something, like far away figures, whose voices towered over a sequence of sounds and noises that she had never heard before.

"What now, Doctor?" said the voice of a young girl, oddly familiar.

"I won't lie to you, young lady." said another voice, a male one this time, likewise not completely foreign however. "The situation is very bad. The internal injuries are by now beginning to heal, but the cerebral hemorrhage turned out to be worse than we thought. Her well developed physique and her young age are on her side, but as of now there is roughly a chance in twenty that she will wake up. Even less, perhaps."

There was a brief respite, then the male voice spoke again.

"Right now, all that we manage to get is a very small cerebral activity. And, to be completely honest, it is the only thing that prevents us to recommend to her family to pull the plug."

"You don't know her still, doctor. She is a warrior. She won't give up."

"You seem to have a lot of faith in your Commander. I hope with all my heart that you aren't overestimating her."

Again, another pause, during which however she heard the barely noticeable sobs of the female voice, almost a crying fit that the mysterious yet familiar figure was trying her best to suppress, echoing in the room.

"They say that the patients in a coma have the ability to travel through time and space. We can only hope that, wherever she is, her mind finds a reason to wish to come back."

And then, the voices disappeared, and she found herself alone once more, drowning in that endless darkness.

* * *

"Your Highness? Your Highness? Are you listening to me?"

Katyusha opened her eyes, not without difficulty, gently reproached by the voice of Padre Ansaldi.

"I understand that Italian is far from an enrapturing subject, but if you could, please do not fall asleep on your books."

Confused, she looked around, trying to find her bearings.

The red walls of the fortress towered outside the window, while inside the room Nonna was almost finished cleaning up.

"Please do not get angry, Padre." said the girl. "Her Highness is made this way."

"Who is getting angry?" replied the man with a big smile. "I am yet to find a pupil that doesn't end up, sooner or later, asleep during one of my lessons."

In a few minutes, Nonna completed her task, and after exchanging a strange gesture with the holy man, left the room, leaving tutor and pupil alone once more.

"Now, your Highness. Just two more exercises, then we will switch to something less boring."

Katyusha tried to continue from where she had stopped, but as hard as she tried, she just couldn't manage to focus.

She had other things swirling in her head, and Padre Ansaldi took no more than a few moments to notice that.

"Padre Ansaldi?" she asked, without lifting her gaze from the page.

"Yes?"

"I wish to ask you a question."

"Just tell me."

"However, I wish for you to answer me as a person, rather than a man of the cloth."

"I learned that at times splitting the two is difficult for me, but I will try. What is it?"

The small girl took a moment, as the hand that was grabbing the pen began to shake.

"Do you believe... in reincarnation?"


	8. Chapter 8

8

Katyusha's hand shook even harder, and her eyes hesitated in turning towards Padre Ansaldi, whose shocked face could be easily imagined.

"Reincarnation...?" he repeated.

"Yes... do you... believe in it?"

The priest then took off his glasses, wiping them as usual with a piece of his frock.

"Technically, this is difficult for me. It would be against more than one dogma of my religion. And, if I'm not very much mistaken, of yours as well."

"That is why I had asked you to answer me as a man, not as a priest."

"I know. And I had told you that at times it is difficult for me to separate the two things. I am afraid that this matter is among those issues."

The Grand Duchess took a deep breath, lowering her gaze even further.

"Then... you don't believe in it, do you?"

Almost sensing how that answer had added to the negative thoughts cluttering his pupil's mind, Padre Ansaldi thought that it was best to moderate things a bit.

"Of course, as I love to say, I am not the kind of priest that deals in absolutes. The rational thought is one of the greatest conquest of mankind."

"But shouldn't the rational thought exclude God's existence, at least as much as should with reincarnation?"

"Only for knuckleheads. Because if we can rationally deduce that there is no proof of the existence of a higher being, just as rationally we have to recognize that there are innumerable things within creation that Man has not been able to conceive yet."

"Is this your own theory?"

"Not just mine. I have been in an epistolary relationship with an English scientist for quite some time. Mr. Charles Darwin. He has put forward a rather unusual theory on the role of Man on this Earth and his way of approaching creation, and I must admit it is quite fascinating for me."

"Rationalism." said the little girl with a sarcastic smile. "The death of ecclesiastical thought."

"Or its elevation to a higher level." replied Ansaldi in the same tone. "Anyway, if I may, why this odd question? Is there something that perturbs you, perhaps?"

Once more, the Grand Duches hesitated, almost afraid to be called mad for what she was about to say.

"The thing is... lately I do not know anymore who I am."

"What?!"

"Do you remember when I shared with you those weird dreams that I have from time to time?"

"Those in which you imagine to be the commander of a small army?"

"They've happened more often as of late. Sometimes, like earlier, I just need to close my eyes for a few seconds to see again those scenes. And each time, they become more lifelike and less unfocused. I am beginning to wonder if they are just dreams after all."

Padre Ansaldi's hand disappeared inside his frock, extracting from it his beloved darkwood pipe and putting the mouthpiece between his lips after lighting it.

"Basically, you believe you are seeing images of a prior life, don't you?"

"I couldn't say. Everything I see is so weird, so difficult to grasp. At times it doesn't seem like I'm looking at my world, it's that much different."

"Thinking to have lived a prior life is hard to conceive already." the priest laughed. "But another world, even!"

"If I had known that you would have laughed at me I would have not spoken of this with you." said Katyusha, puffing her cheeks.

The holy man returned serious, tasting a generous puff of Tuscan tobacco and leaving in the air a small cloud of smoke.

"I happened to hear similar tales in the past. Tales of people that for some reason had memories that did not belong to them, as if they were memories of somebody else. For the most part, it's the ramblings of some madman, but I myself have to admit that some of these tales are so detailed that it's hard to dismiss them as mere fantasies."

"There is one thing, however, that I have begun to ask myself as of late."

"And what could it be?"

"What if..." the small girl stuttered, her voice breaking. "This.. were... the dream?"

This time, even Ansaldi was left speechless, standing there with his mouth hanging half-open and the pipe on the point of slipping out of his hand.

"Both worlds seem so real. So much that at times, like before, when I wake up it's difficult to understand the situation. The more time passes, more that life, the life of a commander surrounded by its soldiers, seems real, even more real than this one."

Katyusha then turned towards his tutor, with the lost and confused gaze of someone hoping to get an answer, any answer.

"Who am I? Am I a princess that has dreamed to be a soldier, or am I a soldier that is dreaming that she is a princess?"

At that, Padre Ansaldi lowered his head, put out his pipe and said nothing.

"I think that's enough for today."

* * *

Recently, misfortune seemed to have struck Mr. Parson and the lucrative commerce that he had sponsored, between the United States and the Russian Empire.

After months spent trying to curry favour with the Tsar, his weapons firm had finally managed to get the contract to supply the Empire with newly designed weapons.

But with that, the problems had just started piling up.

First, the troubles to contact Washington to get the green light for the acquisition, with the mail and the orders that kept being lost in the infinite Russian plains or at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, and then the orders that, for some reason, most of the time arrived misplaced, or mismatched with what had been requested.

As any good businessman, Parson had tried to sidestep the problem by placing smaller, more easily traceable orders, but when this measure had proved useless as well, the very displeasing thought of some saboteur had begun to slither its way into his mind.

At first his suspicions had focused on his three bodyguards that his firm had forced upon him, men with a less than immaculate past and perhaps willing to be bought by some rival firm, enticed by the Imperial gold. Because of that he had ordered to some street urchins he had befriended to follow them around, but after a week of stalking none of the three had behaved suspiciously, and that had led Parson to discard them from his suspects' list.

So, he had begun to investigate inside the entourage of the Tsar and his family, moreso because of what had happened at Peterhof a few weeks' earlier.

According to his personal opinion, that he had very carefully not shared with anyone, it was far from unlikely that whoever had orchestrated the attempted kidnapping of the Grand Duchess Ekaterina would try and sink the potential collaboration between the Imperial family and the United States Government, indirectly involved in the matter.

This, however, shed an even more sinister light on the situation. Indeed, nobody on the face of the Earth should have known of the aforementioned collaboration; Mr. Parson's very identity had been carefully kept dark, for fear of one of the Great Powers involved possibly misunderstanding a mere business relationship as some sort of non-existing American support towards Russia in the ongoing conflict.

For those reasons, Parson had convinced himself that whoever was trying to get in his way surely had to be close to both him and the Tsar, close enough to have had the way to connect all the dots.

With an excuse he had thus managed to gather information on dignitaries, advisors, military personnel and even members of the staff, and, having brought everything in his private residence in Moscow, he had begun shifting through a huge mound of paperwork.

Locked up in his room, he kept working without a pause deep into the night, and the picture that, paper after paper, began to form had something terrifying about it.

It was no matter for three or four people; there were at least twelve names in that list that had probably been working since time immemorial against the Tsar and his family, to the point of trying to sabotage the acquisition of armaments, spelling thus the more than likely defeat of the Empire.

Probably the majority of them had no idea of the plan they were a part of; perhaps they were all men that thought only about the easy money to get, and any patriotism or national pride be damned.

Save for one person; someone that at first looked above any suspicion, but that for a reason that even Parson could not fathom was at the helm of that whole conspiracy, or at the very least had a critically important role in it.

"I cannot believe this..." he stuttered, his hands shaking. "I refuse to believe you're such a traitor. Not you."

The proofs that he had weren't that many, but it was enough to alert the Tsar and to spur him into taking all the appropriate measures.

He was about to call a servant and order him to ready the coach as soon as possible to run to the Kremlin, when a series of noises coming from the floor below derailed his thoughts.

At first he thought that his escort had gone for another round with some vodka, but after a few seconds the businessman heard a great deal of steps that quickly went up the stairs.

Parson had just enough time to grab the revolver from the drawer and place it on the table, before right after the door was slammed open, and five soldiers broke into the room.

"What does this mean?"

"Mr. Parson." said the Sergeant in command. "You stand accused of having conspired with the enemies of the Empire."

"Absurd! I have no idea what you are talking about."

"You have deliberately sold defective weapons to our army. This proves that you are conspiring with the foreign powers. Come with us. You'll have the chance to explain yourself later on."

The Sergeant was playing good cop, but the bloodstains on his and his men's uniform told otherwise.

"How much did that rat pay you?"

Lightning quick, he grabbed the revolver, managing to kill one of the soldiers and wounding two more, but at that point the remaining ones jumped against him all together, finishing him with the bayonets.


	9. Chapter 9

9

"An interesting read, Your Highness?" asked Padre Ansaldi, opening the door and finding Katyusha busy staring intently at a map sprawled open upon the table.

The Grand Duchess did not answer, however, too busy thinking about something, so the priest walked up to see more closely, discovering that the aforementioned map showed almost entirely the western borders of the Empire, from the Solovetsky Islands to the Bosphorus, from the Urals to Wien.

Only when her tutor's shadow partly dimmed the sunlight Katyusha noticed that she was no longer alone, and she was so concentrated that she almost jumped up.

"Padre Ansaldi! Do you wish to scare me to death?"

"Actually, I did announce my arrival. But you didn't hear me. I did not imagine that a map could be so enrapturing."

"You arrive just in time. Perhaps in here you are the only one who can discuss something like this satisfactorily, and willing to talk to me about it."

"You should know me by now. I am always at your disposal."

Katyusha then opened one of her many trunks for her toys, fishing for a bunch of tin soldiers snatched from her brothers during the years; then, like a general about to ponder the path of a campaign, she began to place them upon the map and to form various armies, even though to do that she was forced to get up on a stool.

"I guess you are aware that my country is currently at war with several foreign powers."

"It would be difficult not to, especially in these times." the priest joked, taking hold of a tin Russian rifleman. "Your Father is spending literal rivers of money to finance this campaign. He must consider it very important."

"That's the point. I thought hard on it, and as much as I could I tried to understand what he and his generals may be thinking." Then Katyusha pointed at a place in the Crimean peninsula, starting to shuffle on it the most part of the Russian soldiers. "As of now, what is paramount for my father is holding Sevastopol, where he is trying to send over almost all of our army."

"That is understandable. Sevastopol is the pivot of the Imperial military operations in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The Russian sphere of influence in Southeast Europe and his desire of conquest against the Ottomans go through that city."

Katyusha drew a breath, almost as if she needed a great deal of courage to say whatever came next, even on her part.

"My father is a fool. As well as his commanders."

"Wha... What!?" stammered Ansaldi, who had come very close to a stroke.

"Von Clausewitz said so very clearly. When you thrust all the hopes of a campaign upon a single point, sometimes you just need a single battle afterwards for it to settle the score for the whole war. That may be well and good for who is on the offensive, but for the defender it's a most wrong choice."

"On the other hand, however, Your Imperial Father cannot afford to lose Sevastopol, or worse, the whole of Crimea. It is clear that he is holding on to it with everything he has."

"In that case, instead of just sending troops upon troops, he'd better worry on shifting our enemies' attentions away from there. Broaden our fronts."

"But how?"

The Grand Duchess walked around the table, pointing at the very north edge of the map.

"The British military operations in the North have been very sparse. They contented themselves in attacking our fortresses in the Baltic and the Solovetsky. Threatening in some way the British control on the North Sea through careful missions of the Baltic Fleet in Norway and Finland and regain the lost territories may be a good way to divert the British attention, at least partly."

"But by doing so wouldn't one risk drawing into the conflict the Kingdom of Sweden, or worse still, Prussia?"

"True that. That is a risk that we can't run as of now." Then, In lieu of walking around anymore, Katyusha grabbed a stick, pointing it at the western borders. "Making an enemy of Prussia would mean to expose the northern part of our borders in too dangerous of a way, as they are already thinly defended."

The ease with which the Grand Duchess was talking, the coolness and competence with which she expounded her own conclusions, left Padre Ansaldi speechless; for a moment, he wondered whether it was a foreigner, in the body of his own pupil.

"Thinking to reinforce the front on the eastern side of the Black Sea is a questionable choice, too, considering that we couldn't count on any support from the fleet trapped at Sevastopol."

At that, like a tiger aiming for its prey, Katyusha stoically indicated the opposite side of the sea, leaving her tutor once more grasping for words.

"This is where we'd need to focus."

"Wallachia?!"

"Both Varna and Constanta are excellent ports, close to the Danube and easily defensible, even though they are close to the Ottoman borders. By occupying them, we'd guarantee for our Empire the southern outlet to the sea that we need. It's basically what our enemies are trying to avoid. This would force them, obviously, to broaden the front as well. And at that point, considering the logistical and supply difficulties that they'd end up facing, the tide of the war might be swinging in our favor in a very short time."

"But those territories as of now are formally under Austrian rule."

"It's only a front. Austria is just playing the role of a guarantor. Up until a short time ago, those were Ottoman lands, and it was my father's attempts at claiming them that caused this war. Then, I say, we should end what we have begun."

"But, attacking those lands once more would mean forcing the Empire to face yet another conflict with Austria, which would end up bolstering the tanks of your enemies."

"Wien has other issues to face right now. Prussia in the north and the Kingdom of Sardinia in the south are very much a threat right on their borders, and internally they're still handling the consequences of the independence revolts erupted six years ago, and still brewing. Right now they can't chance another war."

"But without a war, how could these territories be reclaimed?"

"With the only thing that, as of now, is more efficient than bullets. With money."

"What?!"

"All the conflicts that Austria has been dragging around in these decades have left her more and more short on finances, while Russia has plenty of it. If we were to offer to acquire those territories from Austria, I am more than ready to bet that with a few negotiations and a few concessions here and there it wouldn't be difficult to reach an agreement.

Worst-case scenario, we could even give them a free hand in the hinterland of Moldova and Wallachia. In the end, what we need is the outlet on the Black Sea."

At last, Padre Ansaldi had managed to get accustomed to being left speechless by her pupil, but each time she dragged him further and further along.

To be honest, he was sure he had never seen such a thing: could that little girl be right? Could she really be another person, deep into a dream, whose real nature was coming to the fore?

* * *

Upon hearing the news, the Tsar slammed his fist on the armrest so harshly that it shook his throne.

"What does it mean, murdered?" he bellowed at his new Captain of the Guard.

"I regret to have to report this, Your Majesty." said Yerematev, his head kept low. "Unfortunately, the body of Mr. Parson has been found this morning in his own study."

"And is it possible to know what in the world happened?"

"We are currently investigating, Your Majesty. What I can tell you so far is that his whole residence has been trashed, and that his three American bodyguards as well as his staff were killed, too. At the moment, the most likely explanation is that a band of thugs did it."

"I don't want suppositions! I want facts!" ranted the sovereign, his neck's veins bulging and visible through the skin. "Do you know how important that man was for us?"

"I... I am aware of that, Your Majesty." the young Captain stammered, still unused to the occasional outbursts of the emperor. "The whole police force is working on the case. You have my word that we'll soon have a conclusion to this."

"I want the culprits, whoever they are. And I want their heads on a platter for the end of this month."

"You shall have them. Upon my word."

"Now get out."

"Yes, Your Majesty. As you wish."

Walking backwards, and carefully avoiding with his gaze the angry one of the monarch, the Captain reached the opposite end of the salon. The guards opened the door, and as soon as young Yerematev had disappeared, the steward announced the next guest.

"The envoy of the Kingdom of Württemberg, Captain Loehner!"

Before the Tsar came then another young officer, his expression austere, worthy of a proper soldier, ice-cold eyes and with long light-brown hair, tied in a knot as used by the high German nobility; he wore the renowned black uniform of the Württemberg officers, crowned by a steel breastplate embroidered in tin.

"Your Majesty." he said, making a solemn bow. "I bring before you the homage and the best wishes of my liege, His Majesty Wilhelm, King of Württemberg."

"Welcome, Captain Loehner. I must say that your missive in which you announced your imminent arrival left me rather surprised. To be truthful, we awaited you next month."

"Unfortunately, the situation is becoming rather confusing in central Europe. The ongoing conflict between the Empire and the Western Powers has pushed several nations to reinforce their garrisons along the borders. We were afraid to meet trouble if we had awaited any longer."

"You have done very well. And you don't have to worry, you will have all the dispatches and passes that you might need. You will be back in the lovely Stuttgart before the end of Fall."

"You have my deepest thanks, Your Majesty. But I trust, if I may say so, that the solemnity of the guest we will be honored to escort will be more than enough a guarantee for an easy and trouble-free voyage."

"You are correct, but it is better to be prudent. These times, it looks like the crowds in Europe have forgotten the respect due to Royals and their families."

"I can guarantee you that my liege and his son, Prince Karl, are well aware of the honor that His Majesty trusted upon them, and they shall not forgot that."

"I regret to ask you such a thing, even though I guess the difficulties you met in your voyage. I must ask you, nonetheless, to go back to Stuttgart now. Tomorrow, if possible. I do not wish for dithering to cause any more problems."

"Whatever you wish, Your Majesty. I and my men are ready as of now."

"In this case, I shall bring word to my consort right now. I imagine that she will want to take her leave from my daughter before she departs.

For now, the palace will be open for you and your men.

You may go."

"You have my thanks, Your Majesty."

* * *

The next morning, taking advantage of a sunny day, Katyusha decided to try out a small experiment that she had been secretly busy with for many days and weeks.

Nothing about battles or stuff like that, for once.

But something likewise out of the world, if that could be said.

One evening, looking for a good read before bedtime, she had by chance ended up with a volume on the life of Leonardo, and one thing had caught her eye: that weird contraption looking like an enormous seagull that, as the author had stated, was meant to give humankind one day the ability to fly.

To fly.

It was probably the single thing most likely to create a spark in the fantasy of any human being on Earth.

She had no intention to try and take that thing out for a spin, by jumping off the roof; but she could try and build a scale model.

With the help of some of the palace's carpenters, she had built the wooden frame, covering it with a light tissue scavenged here and there, making it look like a giant kite for a Carnival fair.

And now, everything was ready for a test.

Of course there was no way that it could happen without a crew, as Katyusha's dream was to eventually allow a person to fly, and one day, who knew, herself. To be chosen for this historical task was poor Piotr, the tiny white kitten that Nina and her friend Aina lovingly cared for together with the other maids.

To not traumatize more than necessary the poor thing, a small box-shaped cage was specially crafted for him, with air holes, but this was far from enough to assuage Nina.

"Your Highness..." she asked, holding tight her small pet. "Are you really sure that it will work?"

"Don't worry, nothing will happen to him. Don't you see? We even put some padding into it, you can rest easy."

"But, if you put that in, doesn't that mean that you aren't that sure..."

"Don't get started with semantics, now!"

Nina was far from convinced, but she was in no position to refuse, of course.

So, after having given him a look like one to be given a close relative about to die, the maid put her kitten in the cage, which was immediately closed and attached to the kite with a few hooks.

The contraption was so big and bulky that two guards were needed to hoist it up onto the balcony's banister.

"Here we go!" Katyusha declared, running to hold onto the wire. "If everything goes according to plan, I promise to offer tea and biscuits to everyone!"

"What does that mean, 'if'?" Nina shrieked. "My kitten!"

Too late.

"Launch!"

As soon as it was let go, the kite went straight for the ground, and a certain crash. But at the last second, with the help of a benign air flow, it bounced back up all of a sudden, and Katyusha had barely the time to let go of some more wire, to allow her creation to soar like a bird, under the disbelieving eyes of the maids, the guards and all the other witnesses.

"Yes! It works!"

The contraption flew for some two hundred meters, coming to a gentle stop just a few steps away from the red walls of the Kremlin. Nina, as scared as few times in her life, ran to open the cage, and to everyone's shock found a completely healthy Piotr, just a bit winded.

"I told you I could make it!"

To see the Grand Duchess so relaxed and happy, after so many grey and gloomy days, was enough for Nonna to break into a pleased smile, even though into her eyes a bit of wistfulness was dancing, as if she were making an effort to hide something from her charge.

"Did you see, Nonna? Did you see?"

"You have done exceedingly well, Your Highness."

"And this is just the beginning. I promise you that I will be able to make you fly one day! No, we shall fly together!"

Katyusha was still very much bragging for her experiment's success, when an unusual sound of trumpets got her attention.

"The farewell salute?" she quipped, puzzled. "I did not know we had guests in the palace."

Nobody answered, but the Grand Duchess took just a moment to notice that whatever was in Nonna's eyes was now in everyone's eyes.

"What is happening?"

"Your Highness..."

"Nonna, would you mind telling me?"

"I am sorry, Your Highness. Your Imperial Father had done it, he had explicitly forbidden us to tell you."

"Tell me what?"

"The Grand Duchedd Olga." Aina then said. "She has been promised to the Prince of Württemberg."

"What did you say?!"

At that, it took just a few moments to understand.

"You're telling me that... You have to be kidding me!"

That said she ran away, leaving her experiment and anything else behind.

The guards, guessing where she was going, attempted to stop her, but to no avail, and when the princess reached the main entrance she saw her beloved older sister about to get onto a coach adorned with the Royal ensigns of Württemberg, under the reassuring eye of a youngster in a suit of armour, the sad gaze of their mother and that, emotionless, of their father.

"Sister!"

"What is she doing here?" said the Tsar, irritated. "I had ordered..."

"Our deepest apologies, Your Majesty. We tried."

The Tsarina was quick to grab onto her daughter by the shoulders, but, any reverential fear thrown to the dogs, she furiously struggled free, running into Olga's arms.

"Sister! I don't wish for you to go away!" she cried, in a way that could make a heart break to pieces.

"I must, Katyusha. It is my duty."

"To hell with duty! I want to stay with you! It's not fair!"

"Control yourself, Ekaterina!" her father thundered.

Olga smiled, tracing with a finger the red and tear-streaked cheeks of her beloved little sister, and allowing her, despite the gloves she was wearing, to make her feel the warmth of her hands.

"Don't let anything get you down, Katyusha. No matter how hard. Be yourself. For better or for worse."

"Sister..."

That said, slowly but surely, Olga let go of the hug, and under the almost dead gaze of Katyusha climbed upon the coach.

Katyusha remained immobile, almost unable to understand what was happening; it was only when the coach moved towards the gates that she understood that this was no dream, but by then the Tsar had personally taken charge of the situation, closing his mighty hands around her tiny forearms.

"Olishka!"


	10. Chapter 10

10

The dinner that saw the whole Imperial family that night was tense, to say the least.

Not including the Tsar, there wasn't anyone whose expression oozed sadness, and in the whole salon, despite the orchestra's strings, a surreal silence prevailed.

From time to time, anyone glanced at the place on the left of the Empress, now empty, and soon to be occupied by somebody else.

In varying degrees, everybody, from the princes to the servats, had been touched by Olga's candor and kindness, who had managed to look like anything but a Grand Duchess who, with the right marriage, could have had the chance of having a whole kingdom eating out of her hand. The goodness with which she treated even the humblest of her subjects had breached into more hearts than just the servants and those buzzing around her family, and likely there was no one in Russia who didn't love her like a daughter, a sister or a mother.

But now she was gone, and many were ready to bet that they wouldn't see her for a very long time. Officially, the Kingdom of Württemberg was not part of the war, nor could it afford to be, considering its small dimensions; the marriage was merely a way to strike a nation from the list of potential enemies, other than guaranteeing the presence of a Romanov on the throne of a kingdom in the heart of Europe, where the fates of the world were decided.

But in Katyusha's eyes, with all the knowledge and the cool calculations with which her mind had begun to analyze everything for a while, all this didn't matter; not in this case, in the very least.

Simply put, she couldn't accept it.

To make the situation even more intolerable, the impossible personality of her father was on top of that, so sure of himself to become, at her eyes, even ridiculous. The way he looked down at everyone, the way he claimed the right to decide on everything, almost to the point of considering himself the highest authority on everything, were the mirror of a vile, narrow-minded man, completely detached from his time.

And the embarrassing way he was leading a military campaign destined to shape the role of Russia in the years to come was proving it.

All of a sudden, that kind of awe that for all those years had held back her tongue seemingly disappeared, deleting the dread and the craving of approval that any child, more so for a prince, ought to prove for his parent.

"All of this makes no sense!" she exploded, angrily slamming the spoon in the borshch before her and painting the tablecloth red.

"Stop it." her father replied, surprised but by all means in control.

"No, enough of that! I won't hold back my words for you!"

The temperature dropped sharply in the whole salon, so much that even the orchestra stopped playing.

"We all know why you did it! Do you really think that by selling Olga to the King of Württemberg will open up the doors of power in Europe? By now you should have understood what they think of you in London, in Paris, in Berlin! You are nothing to them! And they will do everything they can to make sure you don't matter a bit in the world they're building!"

"Ekaterina..." said her mother, half-heartedly trying to nip it in the bud, unsuccessfully.

"These are matters way beyond your competence." replied Nicholas, trying to keep a hold on himself. "Now return to your seat."

"Look at yourself! You really consider yourself as the only holder of knowledge! You consider yourself a great leader, but here you are, basking in luxury, when out there your soldiers eat dirt and die in a war that they're doomed to lose, because of you as well!"

If the atmosphere was cold and heavy before, now it was quickly becoming explosive, so much that one after the other the servants silently crawled out of the salon, desperately wishing to save themselves from what could happen.

"Your tactics are obsolete! Your own way of thinking is outdated! You're just an old soldier still clinging to the mirage of a time that no longer exists! You refuse to listen to those who know of war and politics much more than you, with the consequence that this whole country is crumbling under your feet, without you even noticing!

You have a huge army, but trained and equipped in such a way that even a band of French farmers could do better!

Your ability to lead and control an army are laughable! And the fact that you're losing this war proves that!"

"Enough!" thundered the red-faced Tsar, flipping the bench and launching his plate almost to the roof. "You've said quite enough, girl! When I'm done with you, you'll regret even thinking of talking me like this!"

"I told you, I'm no longer afraid of you. How could I be scared of a loser like you?"

"Ekaterina, stop." her mother lambasted her. "Now you're exaggerating."

"Don't pretend to defend him, mother! I'm just saying clearly what you've been thinking for years! Look into his eyes, and tell me if he truly is the man whom you were in love with, still!"

Among everyone's shock, even the Empress lowered her gaze, leaving everybody speechless, including the Tsar.

"And are you alright with this farce?" the little girl marched on, but receiving back only the low eyes of her brothers, half-ashamed, half pretending to ignore her. "Look at us! We look like a bunch of outsiders huddled around a table!"

"I'm warning you, one more word, and by God I will have you booted into enclosure at the Solovetski to the end of your days!"

"Do you know one thing?" replied Katyusha, staring at her father with an incendiary gaze. "I really hope it to be true! I really hope that you're nothing more but fictional characters that I've created in my mind! Because if it weren't so, I'd be forced to accept that a bastard like you could exist in the world!"

That said, and barely holding back tears, she ran away, with the guards at the doors, frozen in place from the shock, unable to even try and obey to the Tsar's order to stop her.

For several long seconds, nobody breathed.

"Children." said Alexandra. "Please return to your rooms."

The princes obeyed without making a peep, but even after the Tsar and the Tsaritsa had been left alone, nobody dared to make a sound.

As if nothing were wrong, or perhaps trying to lie to himself as well, Nicholas sat back down and resumed his meal, but in a few seconds, his consort rose to her feet as well.

"Where are you going?"

"I lost my appetite."

"Return to your seat."

The Tsaritsa's answer to that order was a severe gaze as cold as ice, of the kind that Nicholas had never experienced in his whole life, at least not by the woman who was more important to him than his own life.

"After tonight, I would say that your authority inside this family will know a substantial drop."

With that, the monarch moved towards the doors as well.

"Congratulations." she said, turning once more towards her husband, as the guards opened the doors. "Your scheming has cost you your own daughter's respect."

Thus, all of a sudden, Nicholas was left all alone, but he had lost his appetite as well, by then.

* * *

The sight of her mistress running back into her rooms, only to throw herself onto the bed and cry all the tears she held inside, was more than enough to convince Nonna that something really bad had happened, something that had heightened even more the pain she felt for Olishka's departure.

For the first time in forever, Katyusha had left desperation and grief consume her, something that, especially in the last months, Nonna had believed almost impossible, moreover because of the deep change of soul and character that the Grand Duchess had inexplicably undergone as of late.

For a long time, Nonna stood by the door, unable to enter, while the sobs and wails coming from the other side ached like stab wounds; from time to time she lowered her gaze, passing her hand over the apron's pocket and half-closing her eyes, as if she were trying to find within herself the courage to do something that she didn't want to do, or something she was afraid to do.

All of a sudden, after a whole hour had elapsed since Katyusha had locked herself into her room, some light steps made the young maid jump up, and as she turned towards her left she was left for a brief moment speechless.

"Your Majesty."

"How is my daughter?" asked the Tsaritsa.

"She really looks distraught. I have never seen her so devastated."

"Unfortunately, in the end, she is still a little girl."

The doors were of course locked shut, but for the sovereign Nonna could afford the luxury to refresh her handiness, while picking a lock.

Once inside, Alexandra found a room almost completely shrouded in darkness, except the dim light of a few candles sitting on the shelves. The covers and the sheets of the bed were damp with tears, and her beloved child, because that was she still was in her eyes, was still there, her best dinner dress wrinkled, her cheeks and eyes red, and her throat dry by then, after plenty of sobs and whines.

She sat by her.

"Darling?"

"Leave me alone."

But instead, Alexandra began to caress her hair, gently and respectfully, as she hadn't done in years.

"Don't be too much angry with your father. He has suffered from Olga's leave as well. But he cannot afford to show it. He's Tsar. He has to be above his emotions, always."

"But why? Why do you defend him?" the girl shrieked, at last raising her eyes at her mother. "How can you approve of what he is doing? He calls himself a king, but he's bringing ruin to this country, as he has already brought it upon our family!"

"He is far from perfect, but I can assure you that he is doing his best to assure your own wellbeing and that of the whole Russian people. Sometimes, to be a king means having to make difficult choices. Olga knew this, and accepted to do her part, despite the fact that leaving us, and especially leaving you, just killed her inside."

As much as she tried, Katyusha could not find in herself not to hate her father with everything she had; but at the same time, her heart was beating like mad before that smile's maternal sweetness.

"Mother!" she cried, throwing herself into her arms. "What is happening to me?"

"Tell me, are you really convinced of what you said? That this is nothing but a dream?"

"I... I don't know. There is someone. I can hear it. It whispers into my ears. I can see and hear things. Things that I cannot understand! I no longer know who I am! I see two worlds, and both seem real to me! Which is the real one? And who am I, really? Which Katyusha is the real one?"

At that, the Tsaritsa broke the hug a little, allowing the respective gazes to meet.

"You are yourself, darling. And the choice of which world you belong to is yours and yours alone. If you deem this to be the dream, you cannot do anything else but to wake up. Because the best thing about dreams is that you can end them, if you wish to."

"But... if this were really a dream..." the girl said uncertainly. "It would mean that you... all of you..."

"But if this were the real world, then don't be afraid of your dreams. If there really is another you that speaks to you in your dreams, don't run from that. Accept it. Because it doesn't matter who or what that is, she will always be a part of you."

Again, mother and daughter hugged, but this time the former did not break the hug until the child fell into a deep sleep in her arms, gently lowering her under the cover before exiting.

"Always keep close to her." she ordered Nonna. "Never let her out of her sight, not even for a moment."

"I will, Your Majesty. I promise you." the girl replied, and as soon as she was left alone she threw a glance once more at her apron's pocket, worriedly.

* * *

Again with that feeling.

That terrible, extremely uncomfortable feeling of paralysis.

Held in a horizontal position, utterly unable to move, and surrounded by the most complete darkness.

Once more, her hearing, although muffled and only able to hold onto far echoes, was the only sense she had left.

But the sounds, those were the usual ones: that strange ticking sound, that senseless words, that indefinite sound of steps.

That was the worst thing that could happen to her; and since a while, those were the only dreams allowed to her. At least once, as far as her memories could go, there were far more pleasant dreams, if disconnected and difficult to understand.

She wanted to move, to scream. But she couldn't. As much as she couldn't go back, no matter how hard she wanted to.

And yet, once more, she felt a presence at her side, a loving and reassuring one, bringer of the same familiar voice she had heard the other times. But this time, other than the voice, she also felt the gentle touch of two warm hands closed around her own.

"Don't give up. You have to keep fighting. You always did. Please, come back to us. We are all waiting for you. You are our commander. Our leader.

Katyusha..."

* * *

"Your Highness? Your Highness?"

Katyusha did not like to be waken up, but this time she was more than relieved to be brought back from that horrible dream, although sweetened by that splendid voice.

It looked like midnight had just passed, because the moon was perfectly framed by the windows of her bedroom.

Her eyes took a few seconds to focus on the indistinct figure before her, so cloudy were her eyes and so sudden had been her awakening.

"Nonna. What's the matter?"

"I am sorry, Your Highness. I chose to wait until your parents got to sleep."

"What for?"

At that, Nonna's hand went into her pocket and emerged with a sealed envelope.

"This is from your sister."

"From Olishka!?" the girl asked, her eyes wide.

"She gave it to me before her departure, as she feared you couldn't meet again. I think she might want to meet with you one last time."

For a moment, Katyusha thought that she was still dreaming, and snatching the envelope from Nonna she opened it at once.

Remembering well what had happened at Peterhof not that long ago she immediately thought about some kind of trickery, but her sister's writing was unique to say the least, so she calmed herself down, and started to read it instead.

It looked like Olishka was certain that their father would do anything to forbid them to meet one last time, so she had taken steps for a last, secret meeting that very night, on the bank of the Moscova, at the foot of the Ustyinskiy Bridge, that she would reach by sailing up the river.

"I want to go there, Nonna!"

"It might be dangerous. There are lots of guards. Getting out of the Kremlin won't be easy."

"Don't worry about it. I know a secret passage."

Nonna hesitated, half afraid, half aware of the risks that both would run.

"Are you sure you wish to do that?"

"For my sister? You bet."

"Very well. But with one condition: I will come with you. I want to be sure that nothing will happen to you. And you must promise me that we will be back before first light. If we were discovered, my own head could pay the price."

"You have my word."

With that, Nonna smiled.

"Alright, you have convinced me."

* * *

Padre Ansaldi was by all means a missionary who had travelled all over the known world, but he was still far from immune to the merciless Russian climate.

In the evening, before going to bed, he always needed a generous spoonful of honey and mint dissolved in hot milk, to free up his throat.

For long he had gone to the kitchens himself to undertake that kind of evening ritual, but since their arrival in Moscow someone, perhaps wishing for him not to be discovered wandering where the Tsar would not have approved, had thought of entrusting him a personal maid, Yava.

For Yava, bringing to her charge the daily glass of spiked milk was the last task of the day. Like always, the girl reached the rooms of the priest just a few minutes' shy of midnight, but this time she found the door unusually deprived of the two guards assigned to watch it.

"Bugger that Nikita." she complained, looking around and noticing a complete lack of the guardian, also her secret beau. "But I had told him not to leave his post. I'd bet he's gone off to play with his worthy friend. Too bad, tomorrow morning the Captain will make him dance once more."

She knocked.

"Padre Ansaldi? I brought you your milk."

No one answered, but that was per script: more often that not Padre Ansaldi was so thoroughly immersed into his books that he isolated himself well into the night.

So she walked in, but strangely enough she found the room unusually dark. On the desk towered the usual pile of volumes, but there was no trace of Padre Ansaldi.

"Padre Ansaldi? Have you gone to bed already?"

The maid turned her gaze towards the bed, noticing that the canopy bed's curtains were closed. Seeing a shape behind them, she walked up and opened them, staying root where she stood by shock.

"What..."

But she had no time to say or do anything more, because immediately after a shadow literally appeared behind her. Glimpsing that, she tried to react, but the unknown assailant was, to say the least, quick as a flash: in the first place she held her in place by twisting an arm behind her back, then, closing her nose, he forced a strange red syrup down in her throat.

Just a few seconds passed, and then Yava collapsed on the spot asleep.

"Sorry, baby doll. But I've got something to do."


	11. Chapter 11

11

The secret passage cited by Katyusha was nothing but an old, by then forgotten tunnel from the age of the Moscow siege of 1612, created by the Poles to secretly resupply the fortress under the nose of the Novgorod insurgents.

It could be accessed through a small stone column of the southern gardens, turning its top twice counterclockwise until a small trapdoor opened in the paving nearby.

Katyusha herself, now busy removing all of her skirts for better freedom of movement, had just casually discovered it when she was little, and taking care of not mentioning it to anyone to not lose her own escape route from the palace's dullness.

Nonna, insisting on a minimum of security in the case of this being a trap, had herself changed up, and had exchanged the clothes of a humble maid with a dark suit worthy of a soldier, topped off by a Cossack sabre found who knows where.

"You're looking good like that." Katyusha commented. "You're better off than with that horrible dress."

"You're welcome, Your Highness."

"But, forgive me if I ask, do you know how to use that sword?"

"A little." Nonna replied with a barely seen wink.

By the light of two petrol lanterns, with the heart beating faster with each step, the princess and her maid went through the narrow, low shaft for several feet, passing under the red border walls and reaching a gutter outside. At that point, all that was left was reaching and climbing the nearest steps, ending up right at the foot of the Ustyinskiy Bridge, not far from the Kremlin's walls.

Nonna went first, making sure nobody was around, nor any guard still dawdling on the towers, then she helped Katyusha out.

"All clear, Your Highness."

Katyusha walked out, immediately turning her gaze upon the river, looking for any sign of anyone.

At first, nobody could be seen, but it was only after the two girls had begun walking on the bridge that they both took notice of a barely visible light, hidden under the southern arch.

To err on the side of caution, however, as they reached the other side Nonna brought Katyusha behind a bush, begging her to keep still and to wait for the boat's arrival without making a sound.

Afterwards, the maid went a bit closer, and raising her lantern she made an "eight" figure three times; from the boat the helmsman replied with the same signal, then the two parties walked towards each other, meeting up midway, upon a muddy bank.

Katyusha was almost besides herself with excitement, and as soon as she saw a cloaked figure emerging from below deck, following two guards, and being saluted by Nonna with a small smile and a slight bow, she ran towards it.

"Olishka!"

The figure then turned, lowering the hood of the cloak. And in the princess' eyes a mix of shock and disbelief appeared.

"And who are you?" she asked, with apparent disappointment, to the thirty-odd looking fellow standing before her, looking anything but Russian with those blonde hair and green eyes.

"Your Imperial Majesty." he replied, respectfully bowing. "Allow me to introduce myself. Major Herbert Cross. Officer of the Royal Marines, at the service of Her Majesty the Queen Victoria."

Hearing that accent and that name, Katyusha immediately got defensive.

"An English!"

"Scot, to be precise."

His words and attitude were kind and affable, but that had no effect on how Katyusha was staring at him.

"What does this mean? Where is my sister?"

"I regret having had to resort to this despicable trick, but with all the measures taken by your father, we had no other way to get you out of the palace."

It was more than enough.

"Nonna, quick! Let's get out of here!"

Turning away, Katyusha made to run away as fast as she could; but for two shapes to materialize and block her avenue, both clearly foreigners dressed up as Russians.

"Nonna!"

Katyusha expected to turn around and see Nonna with her sabre at the ready; instead, when she did, she saw her as still as a statue, and for the first time in her life the princess felt a shiver run up her spine when she met her eyes, eyes turned cold and dim as two lifeless stones.

"Nonna..."

Taking advantage of her disbelief, that had frozen her on the spot, the two men were upon her in a moment, grasping her firmly.

"Let me go!"

With the strength of despair, Katyusha tried to react, squirming and kicking like a wild beast, even managing to mightily bite the hand of one of them when he attempted to silence her; one result was a terrible slap that left her dazed and almost bleeding.

"Stop!" ordered Nonna turning towards the Major. "We hadn't agreed upon this!"

"Stop that." Cross admonished them. "Don't forget who she is."

"Apologies, Major. This little snake almost bit my finger off."

"You know how you deal with things like these, don't you?"

As one of the two was fishing into his pocket for a piece of cloth and a small bottle, a now resigned Katyusha could not tear her gaze away from Nonna, who instead was trying to look anywhere but at her.

"Why? Tell me, Nonna. Why it was you of all people..."

"Sorry, Your Highness." she answered, seemingly unfazed. "It has to be this way. Sometimes, one must choose."

"You... I thought you considered me a friend."

"You are wrong. I was just your governess, and you my mistress. We have never been anything more."

Katyusha felt her heart threatening to crumble, and such was her grief that she completely missed the moisture in Nonna's eyes. Deprived of any idea of further resistance, she did not lift a finger when the cloth was pushed on her mouth, leaving her assailants free to put her to sleep.

"I say, I was not expecting this." Cross said to Nonna. "I was aware that you were close to her, but for you to convince her of this..."

"I've done my part. Now you have to keep the promise you made me."

"Don't worry. We are men of our word. When you'll be back in Sevastopol, I promise you that your sister will already be bound for London."

Nonna stared at the ground, with shaking hands and eyes half-closed, and when the four guards brought Katyusha onto the boat she deliberately avoided to help out; almost as if, inside her, something were trying to convince her that she had done the right thing, to silence her heart's voice.

All the men of Major Cross' unit were Royal Marines veterans, with decades of experience gained on many battlefields all over the world. And yet, not a single one of them noticed the sudden arrival of a small deluge of small daggers. Out of sheer luck, or maybe out of choice, not a single one of them had been aimed at the two soldiers closest to Katyusha; on the other hand, one of the other two got by with one of them stuck into his shoulder, while the other took one straight in his forehead, his already lifeless body falling from the boat into the river.

"What in the..."

A black shadow fell upon them like the Angel of Death; the Major, his sword drawn, tried to tackle him, but the assailant dodged the blow with almost inhuman agility, and then went for his men, formed up to protect their precious cargo.

Just before he could jump down the bank, however, the newcomer felt a threat behind him, and he barely had time to turn around and draw one of the kukri he had at his belt to parry Nonna's blow.

Only then the others could get a good look at him; he wore a long cloak with a hood, and his face was covered by the lapel; despite that, everyone could see it was surely a woman, likely even younger than Nonna herself.

"And who the hell is this guy?"

That shinobi lookalike kicked Nonna away and again turned towards the boat, but the intervention of another guard, who got a reward for that in the shape of his throat getting cut, gave the girl time to regain her footing.

"Go! I'll take care of this."

"Alright, move it!" ordered Cross, jumping aboard.

"Remember your promise, Major!"

The two guards left hurried to clear all moorings, then furiously rowed to get underway.

The aggressor tried all she could to get rid of Nonna and resume her task, but the girl kept up against her.

Meanwhile, the boat had already gotten away, and was going south, but just when the Major and his two surviving men had thought that they had made it, another shadow fell upon them from the bridge, right from above the boat.

One of the two soldiers fired his gun, but the shot, despite giving the similarly-dressed stranger a small wound, missed its mark, and the aggressor replied by drawing a sabre and beheading him just like that.

He would have likely done the same with his other two targets, but Cross, with a sudden move, grabbed onto a still asleep Katyusha, keeping her before him and pointing his gun at her head.

At that, the newcomer immediately froze.

"Don't make me do this. I can shoot her before you can move a muscle."

That dramatic stalemate could have gone much longer, but in the end the intervention of the last standing guard forced the aggressor to abort the mission and jump into the river, leaving the Major and his man free to continue their escape.

On the bank, despite her unusual ability and mastery in swordsmanship, Nonna was having lots of trouble to keep up with her enemy, her agility looking more and more superhuman.

The clash, despite all, remained a deadlock the whole way, until a sudden ringing of the bells and lights being lit announced the imminent discovery, inside the Kremlin, of what had happened.

"What is happening?" came from above the bridge, followed by a great noise of steps. "Under here, quickly!"

Completely surprised, Nonna was unable to avoid the last blow of her opponent, who first disarmed her with a quick strike, and then unleashed a terrifying knee into her gut before jumping into the river, disappearing underwater like an alligator.

A few seconds later, Captain Yerematev ran down the steps with a handful of guards, finding a corpse floating onto the water, another with his throat cut, and Nonna squirming on the ground for the pain.

Their eyes met, with the Captain unable to disguise his hatred.

"Arrest her!"


	12. Chapter 12

12

The Russian torturers could be very creative when it came to extracting info from prisoners, and Dmitriy Solokoff was by far the most efficient in the service of Tsar Nicholas.

Nonna was sure she wouldn't be alive by the next day; but to be honest, what the monarch saw entering in the interrogation room, in the palace's dungeons, was something that could be hardly called alive.

Even not considering the wounds and signs of the blows suffered till then, the girl, whose arms were chained to the wall and squatting on the floor, looked like an empty shell; her eyes were dim, her expression deadpan, as if her very soul had shattered.

The Tsar had explicitly ordered to tone down the first "encouragements", even though he did not expect much from grilling the girl, whose familial history he knew very well. It was no coincidence that he had chosen her as his daughter's caretaker, and to see himself stabbed in the back like that was the least thing he had expected.

Solokoff, who was about to begin to work with the hot irons when the Tsar arrived, sidestepped to make room for him, who knelt down and stood there for some time, looking at that stony face.

Then, forcefully grabbing her chin, he had her look at him.

"Where is my daughter?"

There was no answer to that.

And the dead look, of someone who wasn't answering out of defiance or contempt, but out of loss of interest in going on living, did nothing to assuage the sovereign's ire, who replied to that silence with two brutal slaps.

Nonna started bleeding, and her cough was red, but out of that she kept her mouth shut.

"I should have known." Nicholas growled, clenching his hands around her neck. "You are the worthy daughter of your father. The inclination towards treason is like madness. It gets transmitted via blood.

In truth, perhaps I should have mistrusted you from the beginning. You were very good in pretending to be immune to your father's germ. I put my daughter's safety and fate in your hands, I forgave that traitor, and this is how I am repaid by you."

Then, he tightened his grip even further, so much that Nonna for a moment was unable to breathe, wheezing and whimpering for air.

"Maybe I ought to put an end to your cursed line right here and now. And do what I could not twenty years ago."

The thought, no matter how weakly founded, of finding out where is daughter could be was the only thing that prevented the Tsar from snapping that lean neck like a twig, letting go just in time to not let the girl suffocate.

"Talk, you damn whore! Or God is my witness, I'll have twenty soldiers in here with you!"

But even this last threat did not obtained the hoped for result, and before he could lose his mind once and for all, Nicholas chose to step away, leaving the matter in the hands of his trusted torturer.

"Have her talk. I don't care how. But make sure she can still walk. I want her to walk to the gallows with her own legs."

"Do not worry, Your Majesty." said Solokoff. "With me, eventually everybody talks."

The emperor then left the cell first, and then the dungeons, finding as he thought his wife waiting for him in the palace's courtyard, more worried than ever.

"Do you think she'll talk?" she asked him, hopeful.

"Between you and me? I doubt it. We both know whose daughter she is."

"Then? What will you do?"

"The only thing I can do."

Alexandra was accostumed to the sour and dark glares of her husband, but that was the first time in which, looking into his eyes, she felt a sense of revulsion, if not outright fear.

"Tell me you're not really thinking about it!"

"There is no choice, and you know it." he honestly replied. "You read the letter yourself. They were very clear - a city for a daughter. I cannot put the future of the empire in jeopardy just to save Ekaterina."

Faced with such a detached behavior, the Tsaritsa literally lost her mind.

"But what the hell kind of father are you?" she yelled, slapping him. "They could kill her!"

"They won't, and you know that, too." the Tsar answered, unfazed. "If they did, everyone in Europe would condemn them. In all likelihood, they'd bring her to England with a new identity. At the right moment, we will send someone to find her."

"You talk as if we were discussing a stranger. We are talking about our daughter!"

"About my daughter, Alexandra. Sometimes I get the idea you forgot about that."

"She might have come into this world out of your mistress' cunt, but Ekaterina is for all intent and purposes my daughter! I was the one who held her in my arms when she cried! I nursed her and gave her my milk! What did you ever do for her, other than mortify and make her feel inadequate? Oh, right, you put that snake right at her side!"

"Who do you think you are?" ranted the Tsar. "Do you think it's easy for me to accept all of this?"

"You are putting this cursed war ahead of our daughter's sagety!"

"But don't you get that it's what she wants?"

Those words, screamed into her face with the desolation and anguish of a desperate father, shut the Tsaritsa up at once, making her heart skip a heartbeat.

"What..."

"You heard her last night. I have to learn to behave like a man and like a true Tsar. If I did what you ask of me, if I sacrificed the fate of my country to bring my daughter back, do you really believe she would forgive me?"

It was only then that Alexandra, lulled for years into the illusion that she was dealing with a mere child, had to admit to herself that they were likely no longer talking about the erstwhile Ekaterina.

"I know that she is our daughter. Moreover, she is probably the best daughter I could hope for. Maybe even greater than Alexsandr. And do yoy know what I am regretting? That I understood it only now. But, in good conscience, I cannot ruin the fortunes of a war for her sake. Because she herself would never do so."

That said, and clenching his fist in his sense of impotence that threatened to overcome him, the Tsar returned to the palace, leaving his consort alone with her pain and her tears.

* * *

Unable to use most of his "toys" because of the imperative order of the Tsar to keep the prisoner in condition to talk, Solokoff went for a less aggressive, but equally effective approach.

They began with the most classic water torture; they shoved on Nonna's head a huge vase-shaped helmet, that was filled with water enough to cut her breath short, keeping each time the water inside for longer before opening the valve to empty it.

Then it was the time for the fire, with white-hot irons brought close enough to the skin to cause excruciating pain.

But despite everything, Nonna did not move an inch; she squirmed, at times she struggled away from the water and the fire, but notwithstanding all that she did not open her mouth, not to scream, nor to beg or to confess. It was like grilling a pillar of salt.

After an hour of unsuccessful attempts, Solokoff opted for a more direct approach.

Drawing from a torture method commonly used in Japan, and keeping in mind the instructions received, he focused on the arms, impaling them with big pins just under the skin, connected to a rod moved up and down by a chain and a winch. The pain caused by the pins moving inside the wound was nothing short of atrocious, especially when the hooks at the ends sank even deeper into the flesh to prevent the points to slip away.

With each pull, with each movement, the skin threatened to tear, and this time not even Nonna was able to contain harrowing cries of pain. But beside the screaming, nothing more came out of her mouth, despite the repeated attempts from her jailer to crush her.

That torture was followed by several others, more or less aggressive, but several hour later the girl, reduced to a patchwork of bruises and wounds, was still hell-bent on not talking.

Completely out of patience, Solokoff decided to pull his gloves off; in the end, he told himself while he was heating up the pliers, she could walk even without one or two fingers.

For her part, Nonna looked like she was waiting but for the coup de grace, even though she was fully aware that it would never come. Not because she was suffering through countless hells on Earth; simply put, looking into her eyes it could be glimpsed that she did not care about going on living.

Closing her eyes, she almost looked like trying to find comfort into the oblivion, hoping not to have to reopen them ever again.

A knock on the door did not interest her in the slightest; she heard Solokoff walking towards the door.

"What is it?" she heard him grumble.

"His Majesty sent me." she heard a familiar voice say, unable to warm her stone-cold heart, though. "He wishes for the prisoner to have religious comfort, if she were to die during the interrogation."

"That is not something to be worried about. His Majesty told me not to overdo it, and I won't."

"Sorry to have to insist, but I have my orders."

"I have them, too. And they mention not to let anyone in. Show me an authorization, and perhaps..."

A sharp noise followed, then a gasp and the thud of something hitting the floor.

"Too bad for you, my friend. Never deny a dying man the religious comfort."

The door then opened, and only then Nonna found the spirit and the strength to lift her gaze, glimpsing at first a black tunic.

"Look who the cat dragged in, Miss Nonna." said Padre Ansaldi with a smirk. "Honestly, I thought I'd find you much worse for the wear, considering the fame of your... playmate."

Nonna smiled too, even though the muscles of her face were screaming for mercy as well.

"Come here to enjoy the show? Or have you come to finish the job with your own hands?"

A few moments of silence passed; then, after fishing for it into his pocket, the priest shoved a strange dark sphere right into Nonna's throat, forcing her to swallow it. Just a few seconds elapsed, and just like chalk from a board, every trace of pain faded into nothingness.

"But what..." the girl said, shocked.

"It's a Chinese medicine." he said, freeing her from her chains. "It numbs the pain. You might have been taught to tolerate it to inhuman levels, better than anybody else, but it doesn't mean you don't feel it. You have to shape up. We have a long voyage ahead of us, after all."

Nonna jumped up a bit, looking at her unexpected savior with a tinge of surprise, only to lower her gaze once more.

"I can't do it. I don't want to."

"You can believe it or not, but I think I know why you did that. I heard some things here and there."

Lying would be perfectly useless, considering that the men standing before her had had a whole court, herself included, convinced that he was absolutely innocuous.

"Then you understand why I did it."

"Still, your eyes don't look like those of someone that knows he did the right thing."

The girl winced, as her stony heart seemed to start up once more.

"Perhaps at first you were very much set in your intentions. You gained the Grand Duchess' trust one step at a time, until you needed but a gesture to have your plan succeed. But then, something must have happened. Perhaps the conscience you thought you no longer possessed pushed you to take your time, hoping that a solution would pop up without you being forced into doing what, with each passing day, you were wanting to do less and less. Proof of that is how you killed that Uigur at the mole, to make sure that your involvement was not revealed.

But then, in the end, the part of you that still put your objectives ahead of the Grand Duchess' trust in you gained the upper hand. And yet, things have changed. You would not have doubted before, but now..."

It was true, and it was useless to deny it.

For a very long time, Nonna had had nothing into her mind but her true objective. But with time, without even noticing it, Katyusha and her destiny had become a constant presence into her thoughts, until they pierced her heart like a poisoned thorn.

The erstwhile resolution had long gone, and even though she had found herself more than once in the position of having to choose which devil she had to sell her soul to, she felt that she had done something for which she could not forgive herself; all the reasons in the world were not enough to justify such treason against the person who had so lovingly trusted her.

"Unfortunately, I am afraid we don't have much time before I'm discovered, so I'll be blunt. I have to get out there, but obviously it would be far easier for me to follow those British' traces in this wretched country, if I just knew where they are going."

"I don't know that." Nonna whispered.

"But you are good at following people, I'd bet. Perhaps even better than me." Then the Captain frowned, turning serious. "If you still have a sliver of common sense inside you, you understand what is the only right thing that you can do right now."

Interminable seconds passed, during which the two shards of the tattered soul of Nonna furiously fought. In the end, the girl closed her eyes for a moment; and when she reopened them, they were shining once more.

"Let's go." she said, getting to her feet.


	13. Chapter 13

13

Grabbing her clothes, Nonna followed Captain Govone out of the cell, and it took just a few feet for the girl to notice half a dozen guards along the corridor, all of them taking a nap like Solokoff was.

"I guess you have nothing to do with this, do you?" she sarcastically asked.

"It's easier than coming up with some weird explanation." replied the Captain smirking, as they kept walking. "Then, how would I have explained getting out of here together with you?"

"About that, you haven't told me yet how you managed to get here. I thought I had had an escort assigned to you."

"Too naive. You'd better teach your guards not to trust any priest they meet. But I admit that the Mickey Finn in the milk was quite good. Miss Nina's poor little kitten went out like a light after just one lick."

At that, the girl had no longer any problems in seeing the real measure of the deception she had fallen into.

"Now it's clear. You suspected of me from the beginning."

Govone's expression was transparent enough.

"That's why you revealed your identity to me. If I had tried to hurt you or something had happened to you, you'd have the proof that I was the spy."

But then, a thought went through Nonna's mind, and it made her stop dead in her tracks despite the situation.

"Wait a minute." she said with wide eyes, while the Captain turned to look at her. "If you really had suspicions about me, why did you let me be at Her Highness' side?"

"And deprive the Grand Duchess of the company of the sole person whom she considered her friend? Do you think she would have forgiven me for that?"

"What?!"

"I admit it; to the last I hoped that your conscience would have prevailed in the end. Only when I understood the reasons that had brought you to join the plot I understood I had to act, but by then you had already beaten me to the punch."

All considered, though, I think I ought to thank Mr. Parson."

"Mr. Parson?!"

"Judging by your expression, I guess I wasn't the only one to underestimate the ability of that fatso. It seems that he had discovered my little secret as well. So, just before he was dealt with, he chose to send me a copy of part of the documentation he had prepared to flush out the conspirators. It's probable that, knowing who I am, he thought I could be the only one beyond suspicion."

That said, the two of them resumed walking towards the exit.

"For what it's worth, I give you my word that I had nothing to do with Mr. Parson's homicide. There are others inside the court involved in this plot. One of them must have feared he had been discovered."

"I am aware of that." replied Govone, his gaze incredibly worried. "And believe me, you don't have the slightest idea of the mess you've let yourself being dragged into."

* * *

Passing the exit, they went for the stables, and took two horses.

"We'll take the South Door. I have already struck a deal with a few guards. They'll cover our tracks and will help us get out of city undisturbed."

"It won't be easy to leave the palace." Nonna commented. "All the doors will be surely under guard."

"By this time, my better half will already have taken care of that."

"I didn't think you were married."

"Not quite." the Captain winked.

Just as they were finishing saddling their horses, Nonna could not help but let out a thought that had kept inside her from the moment she had been brought into that huge deception.

"In any case, I just don't understand. What did they hope to achieve? They should have predicted that the Tsar would have never accepted to negotiate."

"I am afraid that the target of this mess is not him, actually." Govone shot back, fastening the straps. "There is someone else who can give them what they want, and to whom Her Highness' fate is much dearer than for His Majesty."

Nonna thought for a moment, then she got it.

"Prince Alexandr."

"When the news of Ekaterina's kidnapping will reach Sevastopol, it's likely that the Prince will immediately accept to negotiate for her freedom, even if it means challenging his father. Perhaps he'd manage not to lose the city, but the Tsar's reputation would be destroyed out of all this. Who would accept as his sovereign a man who abandoned his own daughter?"

Pulling the horses by the bridles, Govone and Nonna went to the South Door, finding it wide open and abandoned, just as predicted.

"What happened here?"

Just two seconds passed, and out of nowhere a familiar shadow appeared, one that Nonna recognized at once.

"It's you!" she blurted towards the hooded shape that had managed to drop her the night before.

"It's all good." said Govone, before the girl could go for her saber. "She's with me."

Only then Nonna saw the thin lips of the newcomer curl up in an enigmatic smile.

"You took your damn time." said a young and cheerful voice.

"When will you put a lid on it and grow up a little?" the Captain commented.

With that, the young woman finally let down her hood, showing a thick red mane, big dark eyes and an absurdly beautiful oval-shaped face that incredibly did not seem to clash with her assassin's outfit.

"You'll have to suck it up. You should have gotten into your head that this is how I roll."

"Miss Nonna, allow me to introduce my better half, not to mention incredibly wretched apprentice."

"Pleased to meet you." the girl chirped, grabbing hold of Nonna's hands as if she were a close friend. "Virginia Oldoini."

"M... My pleasure." the maid replied, speechless, unable to reconcile that girl of her own age with the shadow that had outmatched her in a legitimate fight and left her for the guards to find.

"You're good in a fight, you know? It was really fun getting it on with you."

"Virginia." Govone called her, reproaching.

"All done. Don't worry, we won't have any trouble."

"Still, I'm surprised. How did you manage to open this door all by yourself?"

"Well, actually I kind of wasn't alone."

That said, the girl snapped her fingers, and from a small door under the arch Nina, Aina and a few more personal maids of the Grand Duchess walked out, all wearing travelling garb.

"What are you doing here?!"

"Miss Nonna!" said Nina. "Thank goodness you're well!"

"Hadn't we agreed on not letting anyone else into this wreck of a plan?"

"It's what I tried and make them understand. But that girl must be really good at gaining people's trust. All of them are ready to come with us, even if they risk their necks."

"And what are you doing here?"

Nina and the others huddled around Nonna's horse, looking at her with gazes that held anything except hate.

"Miss Oldoini told us everything. We want to help."

"That's out of discussion. If you come with me, you might end up being accused of treason as well."

"We don't care." Aina stated. "Her Highness has always been good to us. It's time to repay it."

"We know why you did it. And nobody blames you for it, believe me."

It was clear as day that it was pointless to try again, not to mention that Nonna felt more than a little relieved hearing that her companions still trusted her despite everything.

As if expecting that neither her nor her mentor would disagree any further, Virginia strutted forwards in a little time with three more horses, more than enough to carry her and the group of tiny handmaids between them.

Unfortunately, any other hopeful feeling was destroyed as soon as the tower's bell began to rumble before its time, followed by screaming and voices that made everyone's blood run cold.

"Golly, that was fast." Govone commented, with a terrifying calm.

"We have to move!" said Nina. "They'll be here soon!"

"Quick, onto the horses!" Virginia ordered.

Nonna made to take a step back to let the Captain mount, but she was left speechless for a moment, when Govone instead lifted Nina behind her back.

"But what..." she stuttered, looking at the Captain who was making no motion to suggest he was going to follow them. "What are you doing?"

"Go. I'll try and gain you some time."

Nonna and the others took a full second to understand what their new Italian friend was thinking.

"Are you crazy?" Nina said. "You'll get yourself killed this way!"

"Think about it, Captain." Nonna told him. "If they were to discover your real identity, the agreement between your country and the Tsar could be voided."

"Too bad. It's evident by this time that the Grand Duchess is not fit for the life her father chose for her."

The Captain then turned to the gloomy and detached glare that Virginia was giving him.

"Now it's you who wants to show off."

"Take care of them."

"I will."

The screaming and the steps closing in behind them were the signal that it was high time to book it out of there.

"Tell this to Her Highness." the Captain told Nonna. "The truth is within."

"What?!"

"If I know her, she'll understand. Now go!"

Nonna tried to object one more time, although she knew it was pointless; then, as soon as everyone was onto the horses, the caravan ran off as fast as they could, crossing the doors and disappearing into the city's alleys.

Govone, or Padre Ansaldi as he was known, was left alone, and as they came the soldiers found him there, immobile before the open door, with the most serene and seraphic expression that could be conceived.

"Good evening, gentlemen." he said, unsheathing one of his kukris. "Terribly sorry, but I cannot allow you to go any further."

Despite everything, the Captain was unwilling to hurt those boys who were just doing their duty and unaware of the whole matter.

So, he used only his bare fists, using his kukri from time to time to cause small wounds to incapacitate his enemies and get them off his hair.

A noble tactic, but an extremely unpractical one, and extremely risky as well when one's opponents, not only with the numbers, had muskets and bayonets.

At length Govone was able to move with the agility of a ghost, stepping all over the place to make the soldiers shoot, then swooping in to disarm them and get them to sleep with one or two well-aimed blows.

But his enemies, despite his successes, kept coming; so, first came one scratch, then another, then more serious blow, plus a couple of bullets.

In the end, spent, the Captain was cornered, shivering and covered in blood, with hardly a body part without a wound, serious or not.

Despite that, the soldiers were reluctant to come closer, fearing to deal with that kind of demon any longer.

It was obvious that they wanted to capture him alive, so they were waiting for the wounds and the pain to do their part and weaken him enough; but they hadn't predicted the Captain's unwillingness to let himself getting caught, however.

Govone looked up at the starry sky for a moment, as the first tendrils of the dawn were showing, thinking over on what had happened in those three months, and on how for the first time in a very long time that task, accepted despite a thousand doubts, had made him feel truly alive and happy.

"Princess..." he wheezed with the little breath he had left. "Live your dream."

That said, brandishing both his kukris, he leaped, charging forwards like a wolf cornered by the hunters.

"Fire!"

* * *

She felt pain.

Excruciating pain. Right in the middle of her chest. As if her heart were acting up, alternating furious beats with moments of complete stop.

Once more, screaming was not an option, as well as moving.

To make the situation even scarier, there was that intermittent sound, which had turned out of a sudden into a constant rumble in her ears.

She wanted to breathe, but each mouthful of oxygen was an agony.

This time, around her she could distinctly feel more than a presence; at least three.

"Blood pressure 160-120! 300 beats a minute!" said a female voice.

"What's happening?" The authoritarian male voice thundered.

"She's going into fibrillation, Doctor!" a deeper, older female voice answered hurriedly.

"20 mg of epinephrine, NOW!"

"Katyusha!" she heard that friendly female voice, anguished and desperate now, scream out.

"What is she doing here? Get her out!"

As that fourth presence went away, she began to feel a series of violent pressures on the middle of her chest, without the pain getting any better though.

Meanwhile, she felt her being getting weaker and weaker; not like the other times, when she felt as if she were about to wake up.

This time it was different; she was disappearing. Forever.

"Blood pressure 60-40. 40 beats a minute."

"Goddamn, she's flat lining! Defibrillator!"

She felt someone uncovering her chest, on which something oily was hurriedly applied, followed closely by two smooth, cold, perhaps metal surfaces.

"Charge at 200! Clear!"

A violent discharge, together with an extremely strong spasm that stiffened all of her muscles, but that was not able still to free her from that torpor in which she was losing herself.

"No effect, doctor."

"Again! Clear!"

Again her muscles tensed up to a dangerous degree, with her back almost breaking from the unnatural pose it must have taken.

"Still nothing!"

"Charge at 300! Clear!"

This time it was even worse; it was as if she had been hit by lightning, and for a moment the pain in her chest was so great that she thought her heart was about to burst.

A long silence followed, a haunting silence that she felt as if heavy with distress, while that intolerable ticking sound was turning into a long and unending shrill whistle.

Her mind was getting more and more clouded, and she felt as if she saw a light before her, a warm light that began to wash away any penance, any sufferance.

"Again!" that male voice roared.

"Doctor..."

"I said, again! Charge at 300! Clear!"

* * *

While this is a work of fiction, several characters are of historical domain. Among them, two that featured prominently in this chapter were; so I'd like to share a bit about them.

**Giuseppe Govone** (1825-1872) was an Italian soldier, diplomat and politician. Born into a noble Piedmontese family, he joined the army of the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont. He fought in the Crimean War, as part of the Piedmontese intervention alongside the United Kingdom and France, and then he organized the first organized intelligence organization for the Second War of Italian Independence (1859). After the Unification of Italy, he led efforts in Sicily to combat the widespread draft evasion, with controversial methods; he contributed to the draft of the treaty of alliance with Prussia for the Third War of Italian Independence (1866), in which he gallantly led a division at the Battle of Custoza. In 1869 he was named Minister of War, but was forced to step down a year later after showing sign of a mental illness, that would eventually take his life in 1872.

**Virginia Oldoini** (1837-1899) is better known with the title she gained after marriage, **Countess of Castiglione**. Born into the aristocracy of the Kingdom of Sardinia, she was notorious for her exceptional beauty. Cousin to Count Camillo Benso of Cavour, she agreed to become the mistress of the French emperor, Napoleon III, to sway him for the side of Italian unification and alliance with Piedmont against Austria-Hungary.


	14. Chapter 14

14

Katyusha woke up all of a sudden, as if jolted awake by an electric shock that had abruptly rebooted her whole body, disrupting her turbulent sleep.

Even before she could glance around, the bumping and jerking akin to what had likely woken her made her immediately understand that she was aboard a coach.

The first things she noticed were the unusually humble interiors of the vehicle, likely to avoid attracting attention, followed then by the sight, behind the glass, of the steppe going by before her sight at a tremendous speed; the driver was likely driving the coach-and-four beyond their very limits.

With them there were also six horsemen, before and after, who, armed as they were, formed a convoy with a rather menacing air, hardly transmitting weakness.

"Rise and shine, Your Highness." said politely Major Cross, sitting before her. "I apologize for my men's rudeness and for the unorthodox methods, but we needed to get away as fast as possible before letting you reawaken."

"Were are we?" she asked in a challenging tone.

"We have just passed Kursk. Now we're going south, towards Sevastopol."

The Major then took from a drawer under the seat some oat bread and a pitcher full of water.

"You'll be surely hungry and thirsty after almost three days. Here."

Katyusha for a moment thought of giving a stoic refusal, but after a lot of hesitating she opted to literally rip out of her kidnapper's hand the food and water, if nothing else to shut up the cannonades coming from her tummy.

"You shouldn't be in the least afraid." said Cross, without letting go of that smile of his. "I promise you that we have no ill intention towards you, nor do we wish to hurt you. You'll be treated with every regard."

"Big words, for a kidnapper." she replied with unusual roughness and a strange light in her eyes. "I hope you are prepared to face the consequences of your actions. Nobody ever dared to kidnap a member of a ruling family."

"Unfortunately, complicated situations require efficient solutions. The war that my country was dragged in is very costly for Her Majesty's coffers, and the United Kingdom has too many problems to be involved in the personal issues between Russia and the Sultanate."

"If you hope to use me to get Sevastopol from my father you are wasting your time. He surely does not believe me so precious. You may even have done him a favor."

"We never intended to negotiate with His Majesty. The design you are a part of is much bigger and much more elaborate."

"I hope that your plot takes into consideration your imminent defeat." replied Katyusha, unusually smirking as a challenge. "Otherwise, it's apparent that you are decidedly underestimating my country's potential."

"Or maybe it is you who are overestimating them." the Major shot back calmly. "You see, the Imperial courts have a major flaw, that is, they have the unfortunate tendency to chat a bit too much."

That answer took Katyusha completely by surprise, so much that for a moment she didn't get that, if that rumour had gotten to her, it could have gotten to anybody else.

"We are aware of the army that the Tsar has mobilized to relieve Sevastopol's garrison, and we have already undergone sufficient preparations. As we talk, ten regiments under Lord Raglan's command are being positioned upon the hills of Sevastopol. If everything goes according to plan, they will intercept the forces of General Liprandi and Prince Menshikov near Balaklava."

Katyusha felt her heart getting stabbed, all of a sudden losing all of her unusual bravado and self-assurance.

"Terribly sorry, Your Highness. Unfortunately the end of this story has already been written."

Nevermore was such an affirmation disproved more quickly.

All of a sudden, a noise of galloping horses sounded behind the convoy, and, glancing towards the back window, Major Cross was able to distinctly see a couple of horses closing in at great speed.

Katyusha looked as well, and, recognizing a familiar figure in one of the two pursuers, her glance was filled with shock.

"Nonna!"

At first Cross thought that it was merely his accomplice having miraculously escaped capture, but that feeble belief died together with one of the guards, by a bullet in his back.

"Alert! We're under attack!"

"Having a conscience is a nasty thing." muttered the Major, losing for a moment his self-control, before peeking out of the window. "You, take care of it!"

The five remaining soldiers detached from the convoy, with three of them that, coming out of formation, charged towards Nonna and her companion, one armed with a pistol, the other two with sabers drawn.

"Leave them to me, you go to your princess." said Virginia, who further spurred her mount right at her enemies.

The pistol-armed mercenary was brandishing a six-shot revolver, further proving how the British had spared no expense for that mission, as it was a weapon that, no matter how new to the battlefield, it had already gotten a fame for its danger.

Virginia had never felt one being aimed at her, but she knew how to behave in such a situation. Arching her back until her forehead almost touched her horse's back, the girl easily avoided the enemy bullets, to answer then by launching one of her thin knives that, precisely lodging itself into the gunman's wrist, forced him to drop it, leaving him vulnerable.

When they were close enough, Virginia jumped up and landed right on top of the gunman's horse, cutting his throat and replacing him on the saddle; his companions, finding their enemy pretty much riding alongside them, tried to hit her with their swords, but with just two slashes she sliced open the throat of one and cut the leg of the other, unsaddling him.

All the while, Nonna had gone past them, and not caring a bit for the shots that the surviving guards were unloading at her she kept spurring her horse at top speed, forcing the driver to push the coach beyond its limits to try and lose her.

"Regret to have to use such drastic measures, Highness." said Cross, tying Katyusha's wrists together and securing them to the bars near the door. "This trek is becoming more and more lively." Then he peeked out again. "And you, try and go faster."

"Sorry, Major, but we're already topping out! Soon the horses will collapse!"

Unfortunately Nonna and Virginia, to recoup the time lost, had pushed their own animals to the limit, and now those poor horses had neither the strength nor the breathe to keep up with the coach, that had instead changed horses just before, at the last staging post.

Luckily for them, Nina and the others had followed their instructions to the letter, using to their advantage a shortcut and their own small dimensions that had made things much easier for their mounts.

Therefore, behind a curve, the escaping convoy found on the road an overturned cart, and the girls ready above it, muskets in hand.

One of the two horsemen, turned to keep an eye on Nonna, did not notice anything, and ended up smashing against the barrier when his horse ground to a halt; his companion and the coach instead managed to stop in time, with the driver that, getting the situation, lost no time and booted it, with nobody caring to stop him.

The last remaining soldier at that point thought that surrender was the better option, and he was immediately reached, disarmed and tied up by Aina.

"Major!" stated Nonna to the still closed coach. "There is no escape! Let Her Highness go!"

Just as Virginia caught up with the others at last, the door finally opened, and the Major slowly climbed down, immediately being targeted by the girls.

Nonna walked up to him, while at the same time gesturing to Nina and the others to lower their weapons.

"It's over, Major. Drop your sword and surrender."

But instead, Cross did draw his sword, immediately imitated by Nonna.

"Does your sister's fate count so little for you? At first it looked like you would do anything to help her out."

"I doubt that Irina would be happy to know I had sold my soul to the devil to save her. Now, surrender."

"I cannot. I have a mission to complete."

Virginia and the others made to step forwards, but Nonna stopped them again.

"Keep away. It's my business."

The two challengers faced each other for a few seconds; then, lightning-quick, Cross tried a lunge that Nonna avoided by sheer luck, proving once more that the Major had not reached his rank because of his pretty face.

"Keep up, my friend. Or this will be a very short clash."

By then it was clear to everybody that putting a Cossack saber in Nonna's hand was like entrusting the scythe to the Grim Reaper; and yet, the girl immediately found herself struggling against her opponent, whose lethality went hand-in-hand with the elegance with which he moved, dodged and struck.

To handle a saber was a matter of agility and reflexes, as much as it was for the foil, but for the latter the reach was decidedly bigger, and to Cross, favored by his high stature and the long arms, a well placed lunge was all that he needed to sent his enemy to meet her maker.

Moreover, the cape that the Major wore upon his right shoulder, other than masking his sword's movements, kept distracting Nonna with its swaying, often placing her in a position where she had to desperately defend; despite that, Virginia and the others refused to intervene, understanding how it was a personal matter between their friend and the weight of her guilt.

Had she dies, the task to complete the mission would have fallen to others; it would have been the rightful punishment for her treason.

In the end her own interior torment seemed to become the cause of her defeat when the Major, having found the right space, was able to rip the sword out of her hand and launch it away, and, raising his hand, prepared to finish her.

"Nonna!" Aina cried, before she was stopped cold in her erstwhile attempt to jump in by Virginia's arm and severe glare.

"Nothing personal, Miss." said Cross, keeping his opponent right at the tip of his blade. "I am sure that the Heavenly Father shall forgive you, whatever the sin you wish to expiate."

"Stop!"

With the power of a boulder thrown at him, Katyusha slammed into his shoulders jumping down the coach, after she had managed to free herself by gnawing at her ropes. That single hesitation was all that Nonna needed to rip the blade out of Cross' hand and turning it against him, piercing him right in his chest with a precise lunge that doomed him.

So, while Virginia and the maids ran to help the Grand Duchess, Nonna was able to witness the death throes of the Major, who staggered backwards, holding onto his wound.

"It seems that your Lady has forgiven you, in the end." said Cross, blood pouring out of his mouth. "But will you be able to forgive yourself?"

"I do now know yet. What I will do from here shall tell."

The Major smiled-

"I'll be awaiting to hear about that... when we'll meet again." And that said, with an almost content expression, he collapsed and passed away.

Nonna stood looking at him for a moment, then she thought of recovering his sword, upon which his name and family seal were engraved as well, in the hope of one day returning it to the British Army; out of love for his country, he had behaved in a way that, perhaps, he himself deprecated, and this was in part worthy of admiration.

Afterwards, however, the thought of Katyusha made her snap back to the situation.

"Your Highness!"

In the few heartbeats that she took to turn around, though, she found Katyusha literally wrapped around her beck, with her tears inundating her shoulders.

"Highness..."

"I knew it! I knew that you'd be back!"

At that the girl was unable to hold back anymore, and, any reverence thrown out of the window, she crouched down, holding her protegé tight.

"I am sorry. I am sorry for what I did. And I am sorry for saying those things to you. Will you ever be able to forgive me?"

"There is nothing to forgive." Then Katyusha looked right into her eyes. "But, you have to tell me. Why did you do that? Was it my fault?"

"No, far from it." the girl hesitated. "Actually... the reason is another one."

"Please, tell me."

"It was for... my sister."

"Do you have a sister?"

"Irina. She's three years older than me. She lives in Kiev with my family. She... is sick. They call it the breathing sickness. To survive she'd need to move to a peculiar climate, that cannot be found anywhere in Russia. But it seems that it's different in Scotland. She needs high mountains, woods and cold, sweet water."

"I see. That's why you did it. They promised you to bring her to Scotland."

Nonna hesitated at that, as if the truth hadn't ended there; a thing that she herself was realizing just then.

"Actually, maybe there was inside me some dark desire. Perhaps... I wished for revenge."

"Revenge!? Against me!?"

"Against the Tsar. My father Vasily was a soldier. A Cossack general. He saved the life of General Paskevič, when they fought together against the Ottomans. But the Tsar didn't like him, and he didn't like the Tsar, so Nicholas accused him to plot against the throne. He would have surely had all of us executed, if not for the love that the people had for my father. So, he just kicked him out of the army and exiled us from Petersburg.

Then, when I grew up, your father thought of calling me to court to have me placed in your service. I don't know why he did that. Perhaps he wanted to show that he still trusted my family, or perhaps it was a way to prevent my father to actually conspire against him."

Nonna clenched her fists, grinding her teeth so strongly that she cut her lip.

"Nonna..."

"Head housemaid..." said Aina.

"I've hated that man with every bit of me, and before I could realize it, I ended up shifting that hate upon you. I smiled at you, I spoke kindly to you, but in my heart I wished to see you suffer as I had suffered myself.

With time your kindness smoothed the edges, but when those British envoys came to me, I am afraid that my hate for your family was the first thing that pushed me to plot against you, despite my telling myself that I was doing that just for Irina.

That said, Nonna fell on her knees, hiding her truth-signed face behind her hands.

"The truth is that I do not deserve to be forgiven, Your Highness. On the contrary, you have every bit of reason to hate me."

Katyusha stood there for a moment, speechless; then, turning her glance sideways, she picked up from the ground Nonna's sword, offering it to its disbelieving owner.

"If expiation is what you really seek, I will give you a way to obtain it."

Everybody remained silent for a while, as in Katyusha's eyes that strange light glowed again, so much that in Nonna's eyes it was as if she was looking at a stranger.

"Forgive me for interrupting the dramatic moment!" Virginia burst out, breaking the silence. "But I'd say that it's high time to get out of here. I'd bet everything there are British agents in the next village. When the convoy won't come, they'll surely come to look for it. I'd suggest to turn right around and go back to Moscow as soon as possible. If you bring back Her Highness alive and well, the Tsar might even forgive you."

"We are not going back to Moscow." was Katyusha's resolute reply.

"What?!"

"The army that my father sent to relieve Sevastopol. It's going to fall in a British ambush. We need to warn them, or the city will not be able to be reinforced."

"But, Highness..." said Nina. "It's almost a thousand kilometers. We'd need days for that."

"I know shortcuts. We can get there in less than three days if we keep riding with no rest."

The girls at first had no words, and ended up looking at the ground; they had already called upon all their courage to embark upon that reckless rescue operation, but the idea of plunging right into the middle of a war was even more terrifying.

"If you don't wish to come, your decision." stated the Grand Duchess sharply, before their reticence. "But I want to go."

"I will come with you." said Nonna. "You can count on me."

"Thanks, Nonna. I was sure of it."

Almost as if spurred on by their guide's decision, the others too stepped up then.

"Did all of you turn mad?" Virginia shrieked, lone dissenting voice. "We're not talking about serving tea and pastries in a palace! Sevastopol right now is the closest thing to hell on Earth! And you wish to walk right into that charnel house?"

"Now that I think about it, who is she?" asked Katyusha.

"It's a long story." replied Nonna. "To keep things short, she's a Piedmontese agent, Miss Oldoini."

"Ah, then you're Padre Ansaldi's ward."

"What?!" she blurted out. "Did you... know about that?"

"Of course. That dapper pretty boy was way too sharp to be just a priest. Anyway, that is my decision. If you want to stop me, you'll need to use force."

"I'll tell you what I'll do." replied the young spy. "I'll leave you right here, right now, and best of luck. By now, the Tsar will already have confetti made out of the alliance proposal with the Kingdom of Sardinia, so by logic any further obligation towards you is officially over."

At that, her glare changed, with her eyes turning into two icy, sharp blades that gave a deathly scare to Nina and the other maids.

"Even better." she hissed, her hand slipping towards the handle of the kukri behind her back. "Perhaps I could even finish what that incompetent guy was unable to complete. I am sure that my kingdom would have plenty to gain in befriending the British crown."

When the determination to protect their mistress surpassed the fear for those eyes, the girls immediately aimed their guns at the girl, placing themselves between her and Katyusha.

"But you won't do that." replied Nonna in a rebuking tone, unflappable. "Because it would mean betraying the Captain's trust."

A growing tension ensued, but it ended up disappearing like a bubble when Virginia at last let go of the blade.

"To hell with that old fart." she grumbled, puffing her cheeks. "He keeps bossing me around even from beyond the grave."

"What does it mean beyond the grave?" Katyusha exclaimed. "Do you mean that..."

The downcast eyes of Nonna and the others were answer enough, but incredibly, Katyusha was unable to cry.

Not because she wasn't sad; simply put, it wasn't the right moment.

Later she would have the chance to mourn his death.

Right now, she had to think about saving her Empire.

"Then, we're all set. Let's go."

"Where?" Nonna asked.

"Balaklava."


	15. Chapter 15

15

Luckily most of the horses hadn't bolted, so it was possible to recover them to be used for the voyage that awaited the girls.

The lone surviving British agent was tied up in such a way that he couldn't get free in less than a few hours, while the others were piled together near the carriage, to be recovered.

Nonna had wanted to take care of Major Cross herself, respectfully placing his hands over his chest, and putting a wild flower between them.

Despite everything, she chose to keep the sword; she was too afraid that somebody, passing nearby, or his own companions coming over to recover the bodies, could take it as a trophy; she would give them back personally, later on.

In the end, though, against everybody's expectations, it was decided that only Katyusha and Nonna would immediately go to Balaklava. For Virginia and the others, the Grand Duchess had other tasks in her mind.

"Take my ring." she said, giving Virginia the jewel with her own personal effigy, recovered from the Major's pockets. "Go to each Oblast from here to the Odra. Knock at every palace, barrack, izba's door. We need more men, and now. I don't care how many, I just want them to Balaklava as soon as possible. If things don't go well, we'll need more forces to relieve Sevastopol."

At that, Virginia looked at her, almost smirking.

"And you are that convinced that they'll hear the orders of a young princess?"

"That's why I'm sending you." she said with an identical expression, at the same time glancing at the generous decollete of the young spy, hardly hidden by bindings. "I'm pretty sure you're well versed in the arts of persuasion."

"Hey, what do you take me for?" asked Virginia, pretending to be offended. "I'm no courtesan. Let's just say that I was trained to use... various kinds of weapons."

"That's it. I don't care if you'll need to use your dagger, your pretty little face or that rack you have, just convince the right men to help us."

"At your command, Your Highness." were the last words of the spy, to which she added a studiedly dramatic bow.

"Go, now. We'll await your arrival at Balaklava."

In just a little time, taken a few supplies, the caravan departed with Virginia in the lead, leaving Nonna and Katyusha alone.

"We can still go back, if you wish to." said Nonna, well aware that it was pointless.

"There's only a road we can take." Katyusha answered, jumping onto her horse with unusual agility, and closing her fists around the bridle like a good soldier. "And it's the one that leads towards Crimea." That said, she took off at gallop, closely followed by her inseparable handmaid.

* * *

The expedition put together to the relief of Sevastopol was, keeping to the facts, the most slapdash and unorganized thing that one might expect.

Formed by hastily collected troops from the various eastern Oblast, mostly raw recruits at their first experience, the army also had the misfortune of having the mission to help another force deployed in Crimea since the war had begun, whose respective commanders got along like oil and water.

On one side, there was General Pavel Liprandi, an old officer who had risen through the ranks after a past of espionage, beloved by the men and disliked by the elite, especially thanks to his tendency of cutting to the chase, even if it meant liberally interpreting the orders.

On the other hand, the Prince Alexandr Menšikov, Coomander in Chief of the whole Imperial Army, who had no need for an excuse to start boasting at any time about his long career in the higher ranks of the Russian army and navy, often repeating as a mantra that he "had fired his first gunshot when Napoleon was still thinking about conquering Moscow".

The two had butted heads from the day when Mensikov, having left command of the army in Crimea to his senior lieutenant, had joined with a small detachment Liprandi's forces not far from Novorossyisk, and since then he had done nothing but negatively influence the expedition; not on its speed, rather on the choice of the primary objective. On one side, the Prince had often stated how they needed to reach Sevastopol as soon as possible, on the other, the General had stressed more than once how they needed to do something to cut the enemy's supply lines, so that the relief of the city could be made easier.

In the end, Liprandi had gotten the upper hand, and the army had changed objective from Sevastopol to Balaklava close by, whose road was the major thoroughfare for communication and resupply between the Franco-British forces and the Ottoman ones to the east.

When they reached the place, the Russians almost did not believe their eyes to find, close to the road, a handful of Turkish redoubts quickly attacked, occupied and sacked.

Nonna and Katyusha had pushed their mounts beyond their physical limits, but when they arrived at last the battle to conquer the road had just ended, and the Russian forces, regrouped close to one of the hills that dominated the valley on which the road passed, were cleaning up the redoubts from the residual Ottoman troops.

From the encampment came cries of jubilation, and in general the vibe was a serene one. It looked like nobody around there had realized the trap they had fallen into.

"We came too late." stated Katyusha glumly.

"Now what do we do, Your Highness?"

At that the discouragement in Katyusha's eyes was immediately replaced by determination, together with that fire that Nonna was almost getting accostumed to.

"I'll die before I let a handful of British outwit me. Let's go!"

A few minutes later, the sentinels placed at one of the encampment's entrances saw two figures wrapped in dusty cloaks coming towards them, one of them so small that it looked hardly bigger than a toddler. And it was the latter that addressed the two soldiers, with a tone and an authority that belied her innocuous appearance.

"I need to speak with General Liprandi."

"And who might you be?" said one of the two, visibly annoyed.

The newcomer uncovered her face, and the blood of the two guards turned very, very cold.

"Happy now? Now get me to the General before I have you whipped!"

* * *

Meanwhile, in the command's tent, the General and the Admiral, the brief moment of cohesion already passed, were once more busy squabbling over the appropriate strategy, with the staff as a silent spectator.

"We took a favorable position." said Liprandi. "I say we need to deploy here."

"Should I remind you that we're here to relieve the siege of Sevastopol?" Menšikov said provocatively.

"Sooner or later they'll need to send somebody to try and regain the road. But they'll need a few days to organize a force strong enough, and they'll be forced to draw from the troops assigned to the siege. If we fortify and prepare for it, we'll manage to keep this position and to deal a heavy blow against the British."

"This easy win has worsened your character." Menšikov sarcastically commented. "Just two days ago you would have charged like a raging bull towards the walls of Sevastopol."

"Our men have marched for a thousand kilometers. I think they deserve a few days' rest."

"There will be no rest!"

The two newcomers barreled into the tent so quickly that nobody could announce them, leaving everybody present speechless.

"Y... Your Highness?" the General stammered.

"Did you hear me?" repeated Katyusha, hands on her hips and a nasty look in her eyes. "In the situation you're in, rest is a luxury that you cannot afford."

"What do you mean? And, even more, what are you doing here?"

"It's a long story. However, you surprise me, General Liprandi. Given the rumors that surround you, I had thought you a wiser and smarter man than that. Instead, you didn't notice that you marched straight into a British trap."

"A trap?!" A staff officer let out.

"Getting you right here was in the enemy's plans. I'm almost certain that they placed some bait to convince you to occupy this area, a bait that you took without blinking."

Those present looked around with wide eyes, while a rivulet of sweat came down the General's temple.

"Your silence tell me that I'm right. We're barely twenty miles away from Sevastopol. Did you not find suspicious that the enemy allowed you to come so close without attempting to stop you? The British spies in Moscow were aware of you and your arrival for some time, now, and they had all the time to prepare for it."

"Forgive me for asking, Grand Duchess." said Menšikov. "But would it be possible to know how are you aware of such things?"

"How I know is not important. What matters is that this expedition will end up as a massacre if we don't withdraw at once."

"Withdraw?!" let out Liprandi.

"Grand Duchess, with all due respect." the Admiral replied instead. "I am afraid that the military matters may be a thing way beyond of what Your Highness might completely understand. You ought to leave those decisions to those who have more experience."

"General Menšikov." answered Katyusha, annoyed by such lack of respect but far from intimidated. "I heard about you. My father said that you are an idiot."

The statement caused a half dozen of chuckles from a few of those present, and the same Liprandi smirked inside. On the other hand Menšikov felt the blow fully, settling his collar to try and keep his composure.

"Anyway, with your permission we are in the middle of a council of war. We'll soon have you brought back to Kiev. But until then, it will be better for your safety to be kept in a tent." Then he gestured towards the guards. "Please bring the Grand Duchess to my tent."

The two soldiers made to come closer, but the fired up eyes that Katyusha turned towards them paralyzed them on the spot, arousing in them a mixture of terror and respect.

"Don't you dare touch me!"

At that the two thought prudent to take a step back, almost placing themselves to protect her at Nonna's side, leaving everybody speechless again."

"I always thought that the problem in our army were its officers, unprepared and owing everything to connections." Katyusha resumed. "But now I see that our issues go far deeper than that. The greatest problem is that you're in command. Eighty years old farts of commanders still stock to a decades old concept of war. The world has changed and you still think you're fighting Napoleon.

I bet that most of you still believe in the myth of the cavalry charge, and sent entire divisions to their deaths launching them against deployed armies, thinking that numbers might win over modern technologies.

With such a mentality, each war is lost before it even began.

At this point, I think a radical procedure is needed."

With that, Katyusha, firm on her legs lightly spread, brought her hands behind her back, glaring at those present as if in a challenge.

"From this moment, because of the title I am invested with, I take command of this army. All decisions will go through me, and you will obey me with no discussions. Or else, and I don't care who you are, I'll have you put under arrest at once."

It was as if in the tent a cold win had come down, and for long seconds nobody was able to open his mouth; Katyusha was barely able to reach the belt of a few of them, but in that moment that impudent little girl was towering like a giant over all of them with the mere force of her gaze.

"This thing has gone long enough already." Menšikov then exploded, making a point of showing off the blue admiral's sash. "I don't care if you are the Grand Duchess. His Majesty gave me command of this expedition, and nobody, you first, has the authority to relieve me! And I have no intention of standing here and listen to your insults..."

He couldn't go on. Because Katyusha, drawing the revolver from the belt of the soldier at her side, opened a bloody hole in his right leg, right under his knee.

"Anybody else?" she said, blunt and impassible, while everybody looked at him, shocked. "Does anybody else wish to discuss my orders?"

"Y...Your father will know about this..." the Admiral stuttered, rolling on the floor and trying to contain the blood loss, somewhat limited though.

"By all means. I'll write him myself to tell him of our victory. And to advise him to relieve you from any and all commands." Then she gestured at her new subordinates. "Take this bag of horse manure away from me."

The two men forcibly lifted Menšikov and dragged him away in a complete silence. Then, when his lamentations ceased, Katyusha went to the table, even though she had to climb atop a chair to have a clear view of the papers and maps strewn over it.

"And now give me a complete report."

Nobody could talk for some very long moment; it was the most unexpected person who broke the silence in the end.

"Right now." said General Liprandi. "We are deployed here, on this ridge. From here we can easily control the road towards Sevastopol. We cleaned out the Ottoman redoubts here, here, and here, occupying them and taking over their artillery pieces. The few decent ones they had."

"In other words? What weapons are we talking about?"

"Old-fashioned muskets." answered one among the staff. "Around twenty British sixteen-pounders and at least sixty eight-pounder Ottoman small guns, all with relative ammunition. Little more than costly peashooter, in the end."

"I guess they didn't want to sacrifice any of their best guns for this live bait." Then Katyusha looked at all of them sternly. "Didn't it look to you like too small a force, and so badly equipped, to defend such an important position?"

"We... we had thought that they weren't expecting us." said Liprandi. "We lost barely a few dozens' men to take them."

"Even if it's a trap, in the end it's still a really small force. They had everything to gain if they had tried to keep you busy till the main force arrived. Did you come for this valley from the beginning?"

"Actually... actually no. At first we were thinking of going straight to Sevastopol. We diverted towards Balaklava only after we reached Crimea."

"Now it's clear. Your dithering must have confused them. For once, the legendary indecision of the Imperial army was useful. How long since you occupied this position?"

"More or less six hours." said a Colonel.

"In that case, it's very likely that the news have already reached the enemy commanders. Even if they need time to redeploy, it's safe to say that they'll be here tomorrow morning."

"We could try and march to them before they have the time for that."

"We wouldn't make it. Our forces are scattered all over the valley too. We'd run the risk of reducing the time we have. Might as well stay here and prepare adequately."

"Do you believe they'll make a strong attack?"

"No, I don't think so. On the other hand, it's likely that we'll have the numerical advantage." Then Katyusha made a nasty smile. "Do you know what is an Englishman's worst flaw?"

"M...My Lady?"

"He believes he's better than anybody else. Pride is their best friend. They won't waste too many men for a bunch of farmers loaned off to war."

The definition, cruel as it was, was nevertheless exceptionally accurate in representing the average experience of the vast majority of the men that they had.

"They believe us a band of headless brigands, don't they? Very well, let them. We'll give them a welcome that they don't expect."

The Grand Duchess turned to the map once more.

"The valley is divided in two by those hills. It would be risky to leave either of them undefended. We'll place troops along the ridge here, here and here. If they'll try to climb up to flank us, we'll be able to push them back. The heavy cavalry will stand here, in the valley to the south, while the light cavalry will deploy on the top of the middle ridge, ready to move in any direction if necessary."

We'll place the artillery here, instead."

That last statement caused an universal perplexity.

"Here?!" blubbered Liprandi. "But, Grand Duchess..."

"Cut that 'Grand Duchess' out, if you please. Right now I'm just your General!"

"F...Forgive me... General. This is an open field. Even with the protection of the troops up the ridges, they'll be able to make a frontal charge towards the artillery and cut it to pieces."

"It won't be an orthodox artillery position." At that, Katyusha's eyes once more shone with that evil expression. "And anyway, they have baited us. We'll return the favor. You'll see."

The last enquiry was about a pair of crosses placed above the middle hill, and Katyusha asked about them.

"Mortar emplacements." answered Liprandi. "We are already working on some redoubts. We were considering leaving them to protect the road before continuing towards Sevastopol."

"Mortars... mortars... Of course!"

Grabbing a piece of paper, Katyusha quickly jotted down something, and then gave it to one of the officers.

"Get me those materials as soon as possible."

Said officer and a few of his colleagues read the note, and at once they broke into a cold sweat.

"But, General... were do we find all this..."

"We are Russians, you should know!"

"But if we do such a thing, the soldiers might..."

"Duties comes first! Move it!"

The plans that Katyusha presented to the rest of the staff, after the officers chosen for that thankless task had left, were met with the same dismay, if nothing else because not even the maddest, most lunatic general would have thought about such tactics.

However, Menšikov s blood was still fresh, and nobody dared to raise objections, also because this would have meant dealing with the young Cossack girl that, like a shadow, kept vigil over Her Highness and everything around her.

"Just you wait and see." Katyusha ended. "This will be a battle that the British will never forget!"

Just like last time, I take advantage of this to put a few notes relative to some historical domain characters that have appeared in the chapter.

**Pavel Liprandi** (1796-1864) – Russian General of Italian descent, unlike most of the highest ranking Russian military officers he rose from the ranks. Of humble origins, he enlisted while very young in the Tsarists army during the French invasion of Russia, at the end of which he had already reached the rank of Corporal. Gaining fame as a secret agent during the Russo-Turkish War of 1829, he had a pivotal role in the repression of the Polish revolution one year later. Strongly convinced of the need to modernize and reform the Imperial army, in 1854, having reached the rank of General, he took command of the expeditionary corps tasked with relieving the siege of Sevastopol from the Anglo-French-Ottoman alliance.

**Aleksandr Sergeevič Menšikov** (1787 – 1869) – Coming from the highest Russian aristocracy, he joined the Russian army at the age of twenty-two, after holding for four years the role of attaché for the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Promoted General after a mere eight years' service, he resigned from the army in 1824, after taking part in the wars against Napoleonic France and the Ottoman Empire, dedicating himself to the political and ambassadorial career. Recalled in service after just two years by the new Tsar, he was appointed Admiral and, at the beginning of the Crimean War, named commander of the whole Imperial army. Heavily responsible for the disastrous Russian conduct of the war, he suffered two devastating defeats from the coalition in the battles of Ilma and Inkerman, before the Tsar's choice to relieve him in favour of Prince Gorčakov, at which point however the conflict was all but lost. Disgraced in the eyes of the Imperial court, he retired in 1856.


	16. Chapter 16

16

The news that a girl not even sixteen years old, moreover the Grand Duchess Ekaterina, had forcefully taken over command of the expedition, spread like wildfire throughout the camp, causing shock and disbelief among the soldiers.

But truly, it was nothing compared to the first command given by the new General, that immediately plunged everyone into despair and desperation in a heartbeat.

Because a Russian, as it was known, could survive the cold, the steppe, the horrid food, but there was one thing he could not do without.

"No!" resonated throughout the camp. "Not the vodka!"

"Sorry, these are the orders." was the only answer that the assigned officers could give. "But in case of victory the General has promised that each soldier will have triple rations."

And it was not just the cherished vodka that suffered from this kind of purge.

Again under the General's orders, all the honey and sugar was rounded up, moreover all the glass bottles that could be found were confiscated, emptied and brought into a large tent, around which a continuous coming and going soon formed, and from which an inviting smell soon came.

Lastly, it was ordered to eradicate any plant within half a mile – not that many, actually – and to dismantle most of the conquered redoubts, with the logs that were transported onto the gun carriages to the northern valley, more or less in the place where two entire divisions were placed to dig holes and shallow trenches. In other points of the valley was ordered to dig grooves as well, ten centimeters deep and no wider than three-four, so small that they could not be seen even a few meters' away.

In the meantime, spies and scouts were incessantly scouring the area, keeping an eye with ease on the advancing allied army, all too easy to notice with those blasted British bagpipes that would have waken up God Almighty himself with their noise, so terrible and out of tune they were.

In all this activity, the new General personally supervised the ongoing works, of which only she could find a sense, or so it seemed. To see her going all around the camp and the valley, so small and seemingly defenseless, with a mismatch between an insanely costly noble dress and a traveller's coat as a dress, made for a disorienting effect to say the least, but again, her tone and her glare had the power to bring everybody to full obedience, beyond her status or her title.

And Nonna, always standing apart, kept her under strict surveillance, although, after taking in how everybody followed her without question (perhaps scared from the treatment she had given to the only man who had dared to object), she had calmed down somewhat, and had begun to wander aimlessly through the camp; it almost looked like she wanted to sort things out, to take stock of the unbelievable sequence of events that had brought them there, at the doors of hell on Earth, and on the bring of a battle that announced itself as bloody.

"Did you do that yourself?" she heard at last, in a familiar vernacular.

Her eyes fell upon three Cossacks huddled around the fire, as one of them showed off proudly a miniaturized uniform as if it had been a high fashion dress.

"Of course." he answered. "For my little future horseman. Waiting for the day in which he'll be able to ride alongside his father, at last."

"At least now we know that you don't wear the pants in your house." another laughed.

"Well said." the other doubled down. "What kind of Cossack knows to handle needle and thread so well? Are we sure you are not a woman?"

"I know how to use a sabre very well, in the case you forgot. Would you like for me to add a bit of length to your smiles, perchance?"

"Sorry, brother." the three heard from behind them.

A moment later, a beautiful girl with the face of an angel and the eyes of a wolf was beside them, offering to the improvised tailor a handful of gold coins.

"Could you please sell me that dress?"

* * *

At lunchtime, the soldiers busy around the main gun battery were allowed a bit of a respite as well.

On her side, as the soldiers ate Katyusha went and took a good look at everything herself, to make sure that it was coming up as she had ordered, beginning a slow horseback ride along the valley.

And it was just as she reached the battery that her attention went to a very young warrant officers sitting apart from the others, who, leaving his lunch before the stone on which he was sitting upon, was busy writing down something in a notebook.

Curious, she came close, but that large-moustache man with dreaming eyes was so busy with his notes that took form before his eyes that he did not notice at all he had gained an audience, until Katyusha stomped her feet as she dismounted.

"Ge... General!" he blurted out, snapping to attention at once.

"At last, Lieutenant. Do you know how long I've been watching you? If I was a spy or an enemy agent, you'd be keeping company to the angels by now."

"I... Dreadfully sorry, General. I..."

"At ease." the girl then smiled. "You worked hard, the least I can do is not mess with you during your lunch break."

Once said that, Katyusha reached down to grab the notebook, glancing at it under the almost fearful look of the young Lieutenant.

Those were mostly poems, but there were random observations and short stories as well, some barely a few lines' long, and in each resonated the call to war in which that poet loaned to the army had been dragged into.

"Not bad at all. You have a future with a pen."

"D-Do you think so?"

"I've read more than you could even imagine. Believe me, I know you are a good writer."

"I am pleased that you think so."

Katyusha allowed herself another glance, then she returned the notebook to his owner.

"Let's put it this way. If you die, I'll make sure to recover it. It would be a pity to lose those verses, Lieutenant..."

"Tolstoy. Lev Nicholayevic Tolstoy, General. In that case, I'll make sure not to die. You know, I have plenty of things I'd like to write about."

"Did you finish preparing the battery?"

"Aye, sir. All the guns have been placed as per the orders. However..."

In that moment, the Lieutenant's eyes turned almost informal, as he turned towards the unusual sequence of small cannons standing behind him.

"If I may, I don't think I've ever seen such a formation."

"Trust me, Lieutenant. The British haven't as well. And for many of them, it will be tha last thing they see."

* * *

At sundown, Katyusha granted a veritable banquet to the troops.

If it could be called a banquet after the looting of the baggage train, as no trace of honey, sugar and vodka could be found anywhere; despite that, each soldier received the equivalent of four times the standard ration, so that anybody bound to leave the world of the living the next time could have the consolation of a full belly.

Katyusha kept away, sitting on a rock on the outskirts of the camp, with the starry sky to keep her company; the indifferent attitude to any feast was one of the few things left untouched inside her when she had made the jump from Grand Duchess to General, not that she disliked it.

Once, her ears, accustomed to concerts and dance music, would not have been able to perceive an almost unnoticeable sound of footsteps behind her, but by this point it could be said that the soldier had almost completely overcome the princess.

Despite that, she was unperturbed, nor was she alarmed, as she knew that there was only one person able to move with such lightness and grace at the same time.

"Aren't you enjoying the feast, Nonna?"

"What about you, General?"

"Never cared much for them. You should know that, by now."

Nonna waited a few more moments, then, after a wordless invitation, she sat close to her protégé, even though both struggled to speak at first.

"They seem so cheerful." the girl said, almost grasping at straws to begin a conversation. "They drink, they eat, they dance. But is it a good idea to let them have fun like this, considering what awaits us?"

"That's precisely why they should. Tomorrow, many of them will be dead for sure. I want them to have the consolation of having passed their last night as well as possible."

"You know, many generals would accuse you to be too lax with the troops."

"That's why our army is so dreadful. The training might not be the best, but qualities and courage are not lacking; but how could these men risk their lives for a sovereign and commanders that don't consider them any more than pawns?"

Another round of silence followed, a bit longer this time, during which the two girls lost themselves in the spectacle above their heads.

"Now that I think about it." Katyusha said. "About your sister..."

"Yes?" Katyusha replied, still unable to completely accept the weight of the crimes she had done in her name.

"I have known somebody. Countess Novajef."

"The widow of Governor Sabyeroff? I know her myself. She often travels around the world."

"She has a villa in Switzerland, on the mountains around Saanen, close to Berne. Being such a shallow spendthrift, I am sure she'll have an army of maids at all time to keep it. I am equally sure that she won't mind having one more, especially if her own beloved goddaughter gives a good reference."

Nonna was speechless, turning towards her with the wide, shocked eyes of a child.

"You... Would you really do that?"

"Scotland is so gloomy, and boring. The Swiss Alps sound much better, don't you think? Good air, milk, cheese as much as you can eat, woods smelling of honey and resin. There's nothing better for someone with the breathing sickness."

The young Cossack girl could hardly believe her ears, and at the same time she could hardly believe that the girl she had so callously deceived could still be so attentive towards her.

"But... I don't deserve it. I hurt you. If it hadn't been for me..."

"If it hadn't been for you, I would have never understood who I truly am, and who I wish to be. I am the one who is indebted towards you. This is my way of repaying such debt."

With that, Katyusha took a pendant from the sack that she had carried all day long, offering it to her best friend.

"Congratulations. Tomorrow, you will lead the Cossack horsemen."

"What?!"

"It's high time that your family returns to the place it deserves. I spoke with the Cossack commanders, and they'd be related to have the daughter of Colonel Timofeevič lead them in battle."

Nonna took the pendant, staring at it disbelievingly; she could not believe that her mistress could hold so much trust in her still. However, the thought of being able to redeem the name of her father in the eyes of the world won out in the end over her doubts and her fears, and she happily accepted the nomination with no further ceremonies.

"Actually, I have something for you as well."

The girl opened the bag she had with her, and all of a sudden Katyusha found before her a miniature officer's uniform, roughly colored with dyes scavenged here and there and enriched by gold-painted buttons; the dress was further improved by a blue cap with the Imperial insignia, that too adapted, and by a shoulder strap with a holster, inside of which rested the revolver with which Katyusha had christened her new commanding role.

It was the Grand Duchess' turn to struggle for words.

"Nonna..."

"I don't have much confidence with the needle and thread, and the boys who wanted to help me weren't great as well. I hope you like it, despite it being stitched up like this. I had to improvise..."

Katyusha kissed Nonna on the cheeck so quickly that she was wholly unprepared, and before she could notice it the small dress was already out of her hands.

"My Lady..."

"If... if you tell anybody, I'll pound you!" the small girl said, even more flushed and embarassed.

Shortly after midnight, a messenger on horseback rode into the camp, asking the first soldier he met to be pointed towards the General at once.

Dismounting, he hurriedly reached the ridge he had been pointed towards, but when before his eyes a little girl in dress uniform appeared, a pistol hanging from her shoulder and a sabre on her hip, he stood there gaping for a moment.

"What is happening?" the young Cossack standing close to her sharply rebuked him, to shake him out of his daze.

"Er... the allied army has made camp alongside the hills to the west. They'll be here tomorrow morning. A further two divisions of Royal Marines have landed in the village to the south, and are deploying on the hills close to the road."

Hearing that, the General stood up, with the moonlight behind her giving her an almost supernatural air that left the spectator mute.

"Very well." she said, detached and self-assured. "Tomorrow, by this hour, we'll be drinking over the corpses of the British."


	17. Chapter 17

17

Like most of the British high-ranking officers in the last three centuries, Lord Raglan had a certain adversity towards anything that escaped his control and his rigid, all too British concept of understanding modern warfare.

No matter that such a command had not been requested by him, nor was he interested in it; he had been named commander of the expeditionary corps out of mere political calculations, well aware that his meager service record would have been very useful in London in the event of an unpleasant conclusion to the campaign, as an excellent tool to scapegoat him.

But of course Raglan had no intention to play such a part, and from day one he had led the siege in his own way; naval blockade right at the entrance of the gulf of Sevastopol, land barriers through rentrenchements brought as close as possible to the walls, and constant hammering of the enemy position to deteriorate Russian morale.

Unfortunately his mentality clashed with those of the French and Ottoman commanders; thinking too outside the box for somebody, too old-fashioned for others, he had ended up having to keep together a coalition that, when push came to shove, existed only on paper, since in the end everyone did what he wanted.

That expedition, meant to crush the enemy's attempt to lift the siege, was to be the first serious attempt to create a living arrangement between the three allied souls inside a single army, but it could hardly be said that the attempt had started off well.

The Turk vanguards, whose lone task would have been to gain time for the main force, had ran way with their tails between their legs at the first sign of danger, deathly scared by those Cossack madmen who had thrown themselves against the redoubts like a torrent against a lumber dam.

As far as the French were concerned, cooperation had never been a particularly important matter for them, and General Canrobert had insisted on keeping well under his thumb his units deployed on the left flank.

Although he himself, like almost any other high-ranking officer, had never been shy on commenting on the historical lack of discipline and scarce capability to understand and fight a modern warfare on the Russians' part, Raglan had decided that the gloves were off, anxious to solve that headache as soon as possible and to get home and enjoy retirement; for that reason, even at the cost of losing a day's march, he had taken care to bring with him, together with the Heavy and Light Cavalry Brigades, the French and the artillery, five more infantry divisions, most of whom Highlanders and Royal Marines, with the latter two units making a seaborne movement along the coast, to make sure to protect the village of Balaclava and reinforce at the same time his right flank.

On top of all that, as an additional safety measure, before departing Raglan had recommended to the Duke of Cambridge to follow him with the 1st and 4th Infantry Divisions, if the troops still aboard the fleet watching over Sevastopol harbor had managed to disembark and relieve them from their positions in the siege works, but, whether they would have arrived or not, Raglan did not believe that their help would prove necessary to solve that battle.

Obviously, in such a huge and heterogeneous army, differences of opinion were bound to happen, and Raglan had to do his very best to keep them under control; among any others, the most vitriolic rivalry was surely that between George Bingham, Earl of Lucan, in command of the cavalry units deployed in Crimea, and James Brudenell, Earl of Cardigan, commander of the Light Cavalry Brigade.

Those two, to say the least, wanted nothing more to smash their respective faces at any meeting, a somewhat unusual thing for two in-laws, since Cardigan's sister was at the same time the wife of Lucan. Although their riding ability was not to be questioned, career-wise those two were nothing more than third-rate upstarts, even without Cardigan's nauseating British vanity, of which at times he looked even proud of. He dressed and spruced up before a battle as a Lord about to dine at Windsor Palace, and even on the eve of the transfer from Southampton to Sevastopol he had made sure to travel aboard his own private steamer.

He felt important and loved to show up how much, and in that respect Lucan was hardly better than him, as he spent more time making sure his medals shined, than properly leading his men into battle.

And then, him. The most odious bother that Lord Raglan had been forced to haul with him.

William Russel was his name.

A journalist; or, as he loved to define himself, a war correspondent. A wild beard fit for a friar, lean as a stick and a well-known motor mouth. The Prime Minister himself had wanted him among the expedition to document, with his well-known style, the most important moments of the Crimean campaign, both to make the war a bit less heavy for the British public opinion, and to hopefully gain ground for his re-election.

Twice already he had almost gotten himself into trouble looking for a big scoop, and although he had been forced to bring him along, the General this time had no intention to babysit him, or have him around. Thus, he had sent him, together with two guards, on a hill where the whole battlefield could be seen, almost as if he hoped that some enemy soldier could notice him and use him as a target for his sharpshooting skills.

Just before reaching the designated location, Raglan and his staff left the rest of the army corps to get to a position on the top of the eastern hills, delegating to his officers the task of finishing the deployement of the troops according to the already prepared order of battle.

However, what the General and his adjutant saw, as soon as they reached said hills, left them perplexed and confused, to say the least.

As a start, the Russians had not fell into the trap of focusing towards the valley to the south with their troops in the hope to capture the village, thus leaving themselves wide open for a flanking maneuver.

In the northern valley stood most of the artillery, deployed at the far end of the gully, with a somewhat small infantry escort and other, minor positions on the sides of the hills, on both flanks. Such deployement, though, was in the very least bizarre; the lower line, made up of medium- and heavy-caliber guns, was crowned by the upper one, formed instead by small-caliber British guns capture from the Ottomans, placed so close together that they looked like the many barrels of a gigantic pump organ. It looked as if the enemy commander had been hell-bent on having a lone, never-ending line of guns, to the point of sacrificing the space needed by the crews to reload.

To the south instead, well in sight, the imposing Cossack cavalry of General Ryzhov could be seen, with another and smaller artillery position (armed with twenty-four pounders) behind them.

On the hill that divided the battlefield, on the top of which stood the road that led to Sevastopol, the Russian commander had opted to preserve the conquered Ottoman redoubts, now defended by small infantry detachments that could be clearly glimpsed on top of the stone and packed earth walls, as if to claim their own, ephemeral conquest.

A new council of war was needed by that point, to which almost all the officers and subordinates in command of the various units came, gathered under a white tent in the middle of the encampment.

"There are two possibilities." Cardigan commented. "Either the Russian commander went too far with his vodka, or someone there lost his mind altogether."

"One day your self-assurance will be your doom." was Lucan's acrimonious reply.

Raglan felt a phantom pain flaring up in his long-gone right arm, and surely not for the last verbal duel of those two divas. Not a good sign.

"We'll have to rethink our previous plans. Lord Lucan. You and the Heavy Brigade will face the enemy in the valley to the south. The 17th of the Line will be right behind you, ready to support; you'll also need to support the 21st, that will take advantage of the engagement to climb the hill and capture the redoubts. The 91st and the Royal Marines will hold the position on top of the hills. Lord Cardigan."

"My Lord?"

"With the Light Brigade, you will position in the northern valley, waiting for orders. When the redoubts are taken, according to the battle's development you will be given an objective."

If not for his martial behavior, Cardigan would have exploded right before the whole staff.

Since they had set foot on Crimea, his unit had not been able to distinguish itself, not even once, being employed at best to finish off an opponent already on the run or close to defeat. And now, despite the great hopes he had held for that engagement, he was staring at another second-line role for him and his brigade.

Trying not to make it too apparent for convenience's sake, he gave both Raglan and Lucan a withering glare; he couldn't say it out in the open, but in his mind he had always suspected his brother-in-law of sabotaging his career, feeding the commander at any occasion, and in his heart he prayed for nothing else but to ram down that arrogant rogue's throat all of his condescension.

"What about the French, My Lord?" Lucan asked.

"They'll deploy on their own. As usual." Raglan sniffed. "They'll move on the left flank and they'll carve a path towards the hills to the north. From there, we'll be able to make a flanking maneuver against their main battery."

"But will a single infantry unit be enough to capture those redoubts?" asked the relevant officer, Colonel Peterson.

"As far as we know, this army was mobilized in a hurry, especially the infantry units. They are no soldiers, they're greenhorns. At the first volleys, I wouldn't be surprised to see them break and run. In any case, the side of the hill will give you shelter from their guns, and we'll keep in reserve a small detachment from Lord Lucan's horsemen to support you if necessary."

The plan wasn't quite orthodox, but in any case that was required from the unusual behavior of the enemy. Besides, it was from the times of Waterloo that Raglan showed little inclination towards tactical elegance, rather choosing direct and quick approaches compared to his colleagues.

"Very well, gentlemen. You have your orders. Back to your units."

"Yes, My Lord!"

* * *

When somebody asked Russel to keep away from danger, it was like trying to give a musical education to a deaf person.

Considering that the position pointed to him was too low, compared to the surrounding hills, and too far removed, the young journalist had thus forced his small escort of three soldiers and his three helpers to follow him up a hill halfway between the hills to the west and the southern promontory that surrounded the village of Balaclava and the nearby inlet.

From there he could easily see the whole battlefield; the only place that he couldn't completely see, thanks to the central hill, was the Russian barrier to the north, only partially visible, but it was enough to have an idea on how an eventual engagement would happen.

Placing himself over a rock that further improved his visual range, Russel took from his trusty trunk (always at his side, over a small cart) one of the many contraptions borne out of his mind, designed and built to make his job easier; in this case, it was a sort of improved, vertical binocular that, while just a tad bigger than a standard one, sensibly improved his visibility, albeit at a price of an increase in weight that required a wooden tripod.

Slowly, the various units of the British army deployed to the bottom of the hills like chess pieces, but that was almost instantly ignored by Russel, who instead turned his contraption towards the already prepared Russian lines.

His gaze fell first on the impressive Cossack cavalry deployed on the opposite front of the southern valley, and with the first glance he already noticed something that left him speechless. General Ryzhov, who was on paper its commander, stood to the right of a young woman with eyes of ice and a head of dark heir, dressed like the Ukrainian Cossack warriors, and from how she and Ryzhov spoke and from the deference he was visibly showing her, it was more than apparent who was in command and who wasn't.

"What in..."

At that, the youngster had the idea of looking for the enemy encampment, spotting it with little difficulty on a promontory slightly to the right of the central hill, inside one of the conquered redoubts, but also much closer to the first line of that of Lord Raglan.

A wall of officers and soldiers almost voluntarily shielded from the enemy's sight the view of the Russian commander, and the fact that General Liprandi was among them was for Russel another reason for disbelief.

But that was nothing compared to what awaited him.

Because, as soon as the British army finished deploying on the terrain, that human barrier parted as if a curtain. Both Russel and Raglan looked in that direction then, and no words could describe what they felt when their spyglasses spotted in the headquarters not Prince Mensikov, but a girl maybe sixteen years old, dressed up like the most respectable of generals, and in whose eyes burned the flame of a lioness.

"Well, I'll be darned!" said Russel.

The General's reaction was more or less the same, but unlike the young reporter he tried not to show it, even though, in his forty-years long service, he couldn't remember a single instance who had left him any more dumbfounded.

However, he didn't miss a beat, nor did he show agitation, and at his gesture the bugler's call for beginning the battle sounded under the sky.

At that, Lord Lucan unsheathed his saber, lifting it up.

"Move out!"


	18. Chapter 18

18

The first shots from both sides were fired, more of a statement than anything else; for once, because the Russian guns on the hills near the southern valley began firing long before the British heavy cavalry, slowly trotting forward, could be within range, and also because the Russian Cossacks for quite a long time remained incredibly immobile, starting a lethargic advance only when their opponents were already halfway through.

Lord Lucan was speechless, and could not fathom the reason for such an insensate behavior, that would have allowed his horsemen to engage just a stone's throw away from the guns. Turning his gaze towards his right, towards the hills where the 93rd and the Marines were posted to cover the village, he could almost see them laughing under their moustaches, thinking of the easy victory awaiting them.

"How on Earth are they thinking?" the Lord asked himself. "Are they just giving the battle away to us?"

The soldiers stationed in the redoubts on the hill didn't react to the British movements either, perhaps not guessing the intentions of the Allied infantry that followed the cavalry a few dozen yards' away; this at least until, in an almost surreal calm, only broken by the horses' trotting, from the main Russian camp a flare was fired.

At that signal, hurriedly but in good order, the soldiers swiftly went down the summit of the enbankments, showing what they had been ordered to hide with their presence like a curtain that revealed the scene behind it.

Lord Raglan turned white as sheet, being perfectly able to see what the Russian general had been capable of hiding right under his nose, and at that point it was too late to try and do something.

"Fire!" someone barked.

Right after that, a long series of not too loud explosions echoed all around, showing the presence of a huge number of guns inside the conquered redoubts. And not just any guns.

"They captured our mortars!" thundered Lord Raglan.

However, with no little surprise, from the hill came no grenades nor shrapnel, but rather huge clay spheres, so fragile and hurriedly built that, despite the small quantity of powder used to lit the fuzes, were all covered in cracks.

And indeed, some broke while still in flight, while others instead loudly exploded as soon as they touched the earth between the still advancing horsemen, revealing on the inside a brown substance emitting a strong, sweetish smell, that ended up attached on the soldiers and the horses like glue, annoying and sticky, but at first glance completely harmless.

"But what is this stuff?" protested Lord Lucan's companion in the charge, General Scarlett, covered himself like all the others by that sticky sludge.

"Looks like honey." replied Lucan, recognizing the smell. "And pine resin."

"Are they hoping to stick us to the ground? Fools!"

That said, and with no further ado, Scarlett took command of his first-line regiment, that, gathering speed, gained a few yards from the main body and began to charge.

"Hold, you fool!" his commander tried to dissuade, but that hothead was already too far-gone.

Despite the mass of more than three hundred horsemen that was coming towards them like a landslide, the Cossack cavalry commanded by the young woman surprisingly kept its slow pace, and in the meantime the available space to charge on their own was becoming smaller and smaller.

The distance between the two formations diminished even further, and at one point even the British units coming up to the rear went faster, if nothing else to not lose too much ground from those hotshots in the van.

Scarlett was so sure of himself and of his men's strength that he disregarded anything else, starting from the own nature of his opponent; because the Cossacks were not just extremely accomplished horsemen, but men able to recognize their own horse's hoofs in the middle of a herd at full gallop.

Like ghosts emerging from beneath the Earth, all of a sudden a few Cossack horsemen on foot came up from a bunch of bushes at the bottom of the hill, armed with torches that immediately turned to the ground.

Tongues of fire literally erupted from the minuscule but deep grooves filled with vodka just as the riders at the head of the column, Scarlett among them, was above them; and while theoretically it was nothing particularly dramatic, the poor wretches unable to stop in time were immediately transformed into human torches, crying out their loud and harrowing pain before they fell to the ground with their animals, under the shocked and helpless eyes of their fellow soldiers.

"We can't go any further!" something shouted before that two yards' worth of blueish ardent tongues. "With this flammable shit we have on, if we touch that we end up aflame just like that!"

In the British camp everyone was dumbfounded as fell, with Lord Raglan that almost fell off his horse.

"Great Lord..."

A completely different reaction was generated in the Russian commands, despite an equal amount of shock.

"I can't believe it!" Liprandi said. "They stopped!"

"It's almost unbelievable!" said his attendant. "Who knew that the British heavy cavalry could be halted by so little!"

"The Dragoons are disciplined and valiant soldiers." said Katyusha with a strange smirk. "But even the best trained soldiers is, at the end of the day, a man still. And I have yet to know of a man who doesn't piss himself when faced with the idea of burning up."

In the meanwhile, the second and third line under Lucan had stopped as well, and tried to reform as much as possible; but they weren't allowed the time for that.

Like demons coming from Hell, the Cossack riders came from behind the smoke and the flames in a charge, slamming like a rushing torrent against the shocked and absolutely unprepared first line.

The Scots Freys, confused and taken by surprise, were literally cut to pieces; the Cossacks walked all over them as if they were a carpet, cutting down enemies without stopping or slowing down, since the Scots were so traumatized that many of them didn't even have the time to realize what was happening. And to the confusion terror was soon added when a few Russian horsemen began to show bottles covered in flaming rags, that, thrown at the feet or even against the enemies, torched them instantly, filled as they were of vodka and ethyl alcohol.

Under Nonna's command, the Russian cavalry steamrolled the British first line, and after less than a minute the few survivors ran away as fast as they could, ending up against their own colleagues in the back line in the desperate attempt to get to safety.

Lucan and his men were so shocked and dumbfounded that they made almost no move, attempting a half-hearted counter-charge that had the mere result of causing the clash to be less dramatic; but that did little to mitigate the terrible impact that the Cossack horsemen had on his soldiers, some of which were literally thrown from their saddles from that thousand or more worth of devils.

However, perhaps even against the predictions of Nonna herself, the enemies held their own. After all, they were the elite of the British cavalry, and, after the first moment of confusion, the Earl's men regained a bit

of order with a bit of difficulty, beginning a furious hand-at-hand clash with the Russians.

Despite their effort, though, it was apparent that the British could not hold up for very long, especially because from the redoubts the mortars kept launching those jards filled of flammable substance against the back lines, making them inviting targets for the Russian horsemen armed with those bottles.

"Quick!" Lord Raglan roared. "Royal Marines and the 93rd, support the cavalry at once!"

"But, My Lord." said Sir Airey, his Quartermaster. "If we do that, the village will be undefended."

"To the devil with the village! If we don't do something, tonight we won't have cavalry! And order the 21st, shut down those infernal mortars!"

Leaving the cavalry, already engaged in full combat, without the infantry's support was, to say the least, a gamble, but Major Walcott's 21st was the closest to the hill and to the redoubts from which fire kept raining down with no pause.

As soon as the aide delivered the order, the Major immediately ordered his men to break formation and climb up the hill, leaving the lone 17th Regiment of Major Anderson the task of supporting the horsemen.

At the same time, both the Marines and the 93rd Highlanders abandoned their respective positions and began advancing quickly but in close rank towards the end of the valley, covered as much as possible by the small caliber guns that the Marines had with them.

The 21st then began the climb, disturbed as much as possible by the ill-disciplined and evidently poorly trained Russian infantry defending the redoubts, whose troops would have likely missed a bull's privates with a cricket bat.

That bunch of farmers loaned to the army tried its best to repel the British advance against their redoubts and the mortars, that in the meantime had managed to rain a bit of liquid on the heads of the Marines and the 93rd as well, but when they realized that it was pointless to try and stop them they immediately ran for it.

"They're falling back!" Walcott yelled. "C'mon, lads, forwards!"

Drawing all the strength they could muster for their legs, the regiment's soldiers climbed the remaining half of the hill rather quickly, and then split in three groups, each going for one redoubt.

The Major himself led the charge to the westernmost redoubt, and against his prediction from that moment on not a single shot was fired, allowing his men to easily climb the enbankment and rush inside.

The redoubt was deserted, and the guns abandoned.

Nobody could be seen.

A haunting calm reigned, and a deathly silence. In the air, still heavy with the smoke of the fuzes that lingered the inside courtyard like fog, the distinct sweet smell of that substance could be recognized; eager to run away as fast as they could, the gunners had probably thrown to the ground the jars that they were carrying, whose content was now forming a small stream flowing on the irregular terrain.

The soldiers who followed the Major looked around in disbelief, and if they hadn't known that there was resin mixed with it, the thirst and fatigue would have likely make them fall to that rather inviting smell.

Amidst that strong smell and the stench of gunpowder, the Major found rather normal to sense something burning. A strange crackling noise that hissed in that silence, barely sensible, made him turn his head towards a pile of stuff hurriedly covered with a tarp.

Almost shivering, his arm went and lifted a flap, and in the moment in which he and the others noticed a fuse's flame making its way between a pile of small, dark barrels, even his prepared soldier's reflexes failed for a second too late, under the shock.

"Everybody out of here!" he managed to yell, before a storm of fire engulfed him.

Lord Raglan and his staff saw the hull become a volcano, ravaged by three distinct explosion that in a single moment wiped out, together with the redoubts, almost all of the 21st as well, creating a pitch black cloud that rose against the sky, blotting out the sun.

The shockwave ran through the whole battlefield, while the noise deafened everybody on the hill lucky enough to survive. But it was a short-lived survival indeed; because, as the hill was still burning, the Russian soldiers who had earlier withdrawn showed up from behind the smoke.

No formations, nor coordinated maneuvers; just an unstoppable horde of madmen who, screaming at the top of their lungs, ran like hell down the hill like a human wave, overwhelming what was left of the 21st and going for the end of the valley.

The British cavalry, barely able to defend itself, was also barely able to see them coming; the 17th, in a ragtag formation, fired two salvoes, with no reply in kind, but those devils incarnated were so widely dispersed that almost no shot reached its target.

The Russians on their side did not fire, not as a unit at least; from time to time, somebody stopped and fired blind for the middle, but most of them held onto his show until the two units furiously clashed, engaging hand-to-hand. The consequence was that almost no British man at that point had his bullet loaded, while the Russians were able to liquidate the first opponent that showed up, in a situation where one had to try hard to miss.

And in this whole mess the Russian soldiers kept screaming with everything they had, throwing themselves in groups of four and five against a single enemy, disregarding any and all rule or obligation. Many wielded their rifle like clubs, but to compensate for that anyone who found himself in trouble was almost always joined and helped by a companion; without taking into consideration that, for the most part, the Russian foot soldiers towered over their opponents in height and build, like bears before a frightened child.

Lord Raglan and the others helplessly assisted to the view of their army being outflanked and pinned down, disintegrating into many gaggles that desperately tried to fight back, a few trying to turn the tides of the battle, others merely to try and stay alive.

The General felt his stub turn into a fiery pad, perhaps tightening the sleeve pinned to the tunic.

"My reinforcements! Where are my reinforcements!"

On the other side, Katyusha was laughing herself silly, while around her Liprandi and the others were still trying to make sense of what they were looking at.

If on one side many were having a hard time accepting the idea that the General was making such a cavalier and dangerous use of her infantry, treating it like mere cannon fodder, on the other hand they could not believe that a bunch of hastily trained rookies were outmatching such expert and veteran soldiers like the Redshirts.

"Our soldiers may well be farmers used to toil and bleed for a plate of carrots, or to duke it out with wolves and bears to hold on tight to the few sheep that my father does not take for himself with his taxes." Katyusha smiled, guessing what her counselors were thinking. "But if you get a thousand angry and determined farmers and throw them down the side of a hill, there's no discipline nor training able to stop them."

Only one person in the British formation was not negatively traumatized by what was happening.

From his privileged position, Russel watched with his own eyes as the disciplined and deployed British army went completely topsy-turvy. In a matter of minutes, a small girl that believed herself a general had crushed a hundred years' worth of glorious British military history, and at least three centuries' worth of the way of conceiving a battle.

"Mr. Russel, what are you doing?" said his guard, as he saw him jump on horseback.

They tried to stop him, but it was no use, and a few moments later they saw that madman launching himself towards that hill like a candidate for suicide, his costly reporter's toys making a perfect peacock's tail on the back of his horse.

Several horsemen had been thrown off their saddles, and by now the battle was largely being played out on foot.

Not that being on horseback was of much help in that mess.

The Russian infantrymen were little more than an army of gorillas thrown against a target, but the Cossacks were true demons, whose capability to remain on the saddle and butcher enemies with precise cuts was nothing short of prodigious.

It was hardly surprising that they were feared and object of legends in the whole Eastern Europe.

"Don't scatter!" Lucan kept yelling. "Close ranks!"

Around him a small picket of soldiers still on their horses had formed, and they were still fighting doggedly, but all around it was nothing but madness.

Any strategy or intent had no more meaning, trying to survive was what mattered.

Just a few yards away, the infantry was faring no better, under pressure from all sides by the Russian soldiers come from the hill, and from time to time charged by the Cossacks to inflict further damage and lowering their morale more and more.

Realizing that staying there to be butchered was pointless, Commander Campbedd thought appropriate to order the survivors of the 93rd to withdraw; then, well protected by a wall of fire, and without showing their backs to the engagements, the Scots retreated to their starting position, deploying in a long, thin red line at the top of the hill from where they had come.

Noticing them, Ryzhov took with him part of the cavalry and, leading them, went along the ridge, sure that they could be easily overwhelmed with a quick charge.

"What is that idiot doing?" Katyusha snarled.

Unfortunately, a platoon of Highlanders was not the kind of opponent one should underestimate. With no apparent emotion, and standing tall on their feet, the Scots awaited till the last minute.

"Fire!" Campbell ordered at last.

The fire was quick and precise, and with the Cossacks almost on top of the line formed by the Scottish infantrymen almost all bullets found their mark, causing a considerable number of killed and wounded.

The second and third group tried the same thing, but all three times the results was the same, and in the end Rhyzhov had little choice but to sound retreat, before his unit ended up decimated.

The scene was noticed, not without discouragement, by the Russian high command.

"That hill seems impregnable." said Liprandi.

"Not for long." Katyusha coldly replied.

Just a few minutes elapsed, and from their vantage position Campbell and his men watched over a rather unusual situation.

Even if a small one, a mortar could easily weigh no less than six hundred pounds, and that was why an animal hauling was almost always necessary.

In India and in South East Asia, however, there was a millennia-old method, that, through the creation of special supports formed by thin wooden beams placed together to form a net, allowed to distribute even huge weights on a considerable surface; if to this was added the proverbial pace of the Korean and Japanese porters, with the rhythm kept by staffs, that was how a respectable gun could be carried here or there on the battlefield even faster than it would have been possible with mules or carts.

The men of the 93rd saw then a small detachment of Russian foot soldiers dropping five mortars right at the bottom of their hill, and the mere thought of what had seen happening just half an hour earlier to the heavy cavalry made their blood run cold, especially considering that many of them were already covered in flammable liquid that awaited only a spark.

"Don't fall back." Their commander admonished them. "We are too high and too far to be hit! Hold tight!"

And in fact, something was shot; but not what Campbell and his men were awaiting.

Having loaded the mortar, the Russians threw at them a huge leather sack, that, breaking against the ground, let loose some kind of white powder, so thin that it long remained in the air before falling down.

"What kind of game are they playing at?" the commander asked himself, almost annoyed.

Lots of that stuff was fired, three or four per minute, and in a little while the whole hull was covered by that dense white fog.

The main consequence was that the 93rd ended up completely blind, since what was going on around them, save for the battle noises, was barely visible, and that stuff was so thick that one could barely see just a little further than his own rifle.

A proper situation for a surprise attack.

"In formation! Close ranks!"

The soldiers immediately formed a square, aiming their weapons in each direction.

For a moment, to that small group of men it seemed as if they had come to the edge of the underworld itself, with the noise of the battle raging down there that was doing nothing but covering the arrival of potential attackers.

"To the left!" somebody screamed.

A moment later, like the Headless Horseman of the legends, a shadow came from nothing, neatly decapitating a soldier; somebody tried to fire, but by that time the ghost had already disappeared in the god, and everybody considered it better to keep his bullet for more concrete threats.

Campbell was doing his very best to keep his self-control, but he was nervous himself, to say the least, because of that surreal situation.

Nervously, he wiped that annoying dust off his face, and, just as another ghost showed up again to kill one more of his soldiers, the sight of his whitened hand froze his blood.

"Don't shoot!" he yelled, as he had never done, just in time to stop a pair of men with their trigger finger already twitching. "This is flour!"

Now it was clear.

And everybody, literally everybody, almost wet their pants at the thought of what would have happened if a simple spark had been let loose.

Forced into immobility, with an opponent that could be anywhere, and with those damned horsemen who came from everywhere, cutting down the least attentive ones and disappearing before they could be bayoneted at, the tension rapidly rose to an alarming level.

And at that point, it took just the least disciplined and stable of the group, deceived by a shadow that probably only existed in his head, to provoke the tragedy, allowing his finger to curl just a tad too much.

Just as the ignition sparked to life, a true firestorm engulfed the whole hill; the flame in itself wasn't anything memorable, disappearing after a few moments, but it was more than enough to ignite the combustible in which the uniforms were still drenched with.

Almost all the components of the 93rd took fire instantaneously, and the few ones that managed not to be reached by the flames were quickly reached and slaughtered by Ryzhov and his men.

Just then Liprandi and the others understood; understood that their commander was winning a seemingly hopeless battle using the only weapon against which no defense existed, capable to defeat anybody , if used in the right way.

"Fear kills more than the enemy." Katyusha grinned, in a way that almost scared Liprandi and the others.

At the sight of that added tragedy, and with the enemy apparently on the verge of breaking through, Lucan was close to ordering a dramatic retreat, well aware that it would have meant an almost sure defeat.

All of a sudden, bagpipes echoed in the valley, driving everyone to turn in a single direction; just a few seconds passed, and from behind the hull on which the British headquarters stood two English and one French infantry divisions appeared, with the Duke of Cambridge and General Vinoy at their head.

"There they are, at last!" Raglan let out.

Lucan's reaction was much more colorful and vehement.

"The reinforcements!" he bellowed, throwing his cap into the air. "The reinforcements are here!"


	19. Chapter 19

19

"Where the hell do they come from?" Katyusha groused, annoyed. "What are our scouts doing, catching a few z's?"

The newcomers immediately opened up their formation, deploying into six long lines that almost completely covered the southern valley, from hill to hill, with the British heavy infantry forming up the center.

Part of the Russian foot soldiers, remembering the earlier victorious charge, and surely fired up by a situation that until then had played in their favour, naively thought about trying once more, throwing themselves like madmen against the deployed enemy.

Unfortunately, there was quite the difference between attacking confused enemy soldiers coming down a hill and brazenly charging a fresh, prepared unit, and few of those poor bastards understood it in time.

With just two volleys, the Allies annihilated almost a third of the Russian infantry engaged, and with that Nonna had the wise idea to order his cavalry, by then clearly outnumbered, to cede a bit of terrain, to get as much space as possible between her men and the enemy rifles.

"Order those idiots to halt before being butchered like foxes. Form up again three hundred yards away from the frontline. And all the reserves forwards."

"What about the cavalry?" asked Liprandi. "If this keeps up, they'll be caught between the rock and the hard spot."

"Nonna can take care of herself. Do as I say."

* * *

The new maneuver of the Russian General, promptly noticed by the British command, caused the immediate reaction from both Raglan and the officers engaged in battle.

Lucan, to avoid finding himself in a crossfire, thought better to withdraw what was left of his cavalrymen, ordering to redeploy in the northern valley, ready to support Cardigan when it would be time to advance once more and seal the deal. Nonna could have gone after them, but his men, no matter how extraordinary, were exhausted as well; so, she gave the order to find safety on top of the middle hill, still partially covered by the smoke of the previous explosions, away from the battle and from the enemy artillery.

However, the bad news were not over yet.

"General!" yelled an onrushing aide, fast as if he had the devil at his heels. "The French light cavalry has done a flanking movement and is coming up from the north! They're going for our batteries on the hill!"

"We have to withdraw them at once! Up there they're sitting ducks!"

"Don't you worry, I already took care of that." Katyusha replied calmly.

* * *

After a lengthy flanking maneuver, the French light cavalry (Chasseurs d'Afrique) under the direct command of General Canrobert had managed to get through the frontline undisturbed.

The original plan was to complete the encirclement and attack the Russian encampment from the north, but faced with the chance of taking up too much time, making the French contribution to the victory non-existent, the General had instead ordered to strike at the artillery posts on top of the northernmost hill, the Fedyukhin hills.

The pronounced curve made by the French to go around the battle had allowed them to get close to their target completely unmolested; then, when they spotted the first earthworks guarding the hills, the General ordered to pick up the pace.

The first posts turned out to be empty, perhaps because they were too exposed to be defensible.

Only after another three hundred years at a lively trot the Chasseur reached the enemy; just where thhe terrain began to curve upwards, the French surprised a small group of Russian foot soldiers that were fumbling about in some trenches, from which some tall columns of black smoke rose high in the sky.

"Charge!" Canrobert immediately ordered.

The Russians, however, did not even try to resist, but instead took flight at once, escaping towards the top, with the smoke covering them.

Not put off at all, the French kept up their charge, and with nothing standing in their way they passed over that last defensive line, spreading up the hills.

The smoke through which they went, sickening and dense beyond belief, completely surrounded them, turning out to be not a barrier, but rather a thick cloud that covered the whole hill.

Canrobert and his men quickly lost trace of their targets, finding themselves riding on a terrain that aesthetically had more than a passing resemblance to the antechamber of the Underworld.

All around them it was impossible to see beyond a few inches, so much that each man had trouble keeping sight of who was just two ranks forwards.

Everywhere was a barely sloped plain covered by stones and gravel; the only reference points, if any, were a few heaps of stones and lightened pyres that created that disgusting smoke, positioned with maniacal precision a certain distance away from each other, following a precise concept.

Soon, also because of the lack of any target worth of a charge, the offensive lost its élan, turning into a slow trot, confused and also fearful at times. The soldiers kept looking for each other, trying to breathe as little as possible to avoid getting more of that gaseous tar into their lungs, capable of causing dry heaves more than the fiercest massacre.

"But what in the devil is happening here?" a disgruntled Canrobert growled.

Before the situation could slip from his control, the General ordered to resume the charge, aiming straight to the top; after all, one way or another there was an end to that hill, and perhaps, once at the top, they would get their bearings.

Despite everything, that venomous fog kept floating about, and no matter how far they went, Canrobert and his men, other than suffering more and more from that untolerable smell that burned noses and throats, were unable to see the end of it.

Then, all of a sudden, the sun was shining once more, and the horsemen in the vanguard found themselves out of the cloud. Unfortunately for them, the time they took to adjust their eyes to the sunlight was not enough for three of them to see where they were going, and their companions could only watch as they literally flew down a small cliff with their horses; the jump itself wasn't that much of a big deal, but more than enough to ensure a crushing death on the rocks below.

"Halt, halt!" yelled the General, before others could follow them to the same fate.

Actually, they were on a small strip of arid land protruding over the valley below. The hill that bisected the battlefield was right in front of them, and despite the distance the Russian soldiers deployed on the other side immediately began firing on them; and since there was no other way out of there, the French could do nothing else but promptly turn their horses around and get back into the fog.

It was just then that Canrobert and his troops completely understood that they were trapped.

Choked by that miasma, with no idea of where to go, right in the middle of a battlefield, where the enemy could be anywhere.

The frantic attempt to find a way out quickly led to the disintegration of the unit, with small groups of horsemen that, lost contact with the others, started in various directions, disappearing into the smoke without the General, who had no more control over the situation, could do anything.

But the worst part, that caused everybody to lose their nerves, was that when, from somewhere into that fog, screams and yelps of those who had unwisely wandered off began to reach them, together with echoes of brief clashes.

Then followed shots fired, clashing of swords, and in a short time they began seeing horses that trotted aimlessly here and there, a few with their rider still on the saddle, with his throat cut or shot up like a hunted animal. With that, panic ensued.

Everybody ran in a random direction, a few even abandoning their horses and their sabres, with the General and his officers no longer commanding anything.

Single groups began to coagulate together, in a game of butchery that made them see the enemy where there was none, all of this helped by the fact that, from time to time, somebody, even right in the middle, ended up being killed all of a sudden by shots fired from God knew where, or even by anachronistical arrows.

The height of the panic was reached when Canrobert's aide, after cursing out his General after the last appeal to calm, had thrown himself against a shadow that was going straight for him without thinking twice, and ended up realizing that he had decapitated the same man who had left ten Francs poorer the evening before with a _septiéme_ only when it was too late.

Looking at his men butchering each other, pushed in such a way like animals thrown into an arena by invisible gaolers, overwhelmed by fear and hysteria, the General, his heart threatening to stop with each beat, had but a single choice.

"Drop your weapons!" he ordered with what breath that smell had left in his lungs. "I said, drop your weapons!"

Despite everything, his men welcomed that ill-fated order like a blessing, letting sabres, pistols and muskets drop to the ground.

"We surrender!" Canrobert yelled once more. "Did you hear me, Russians? I said we surrender!"

The silence persisted for interminable seconds, with the astonished soldiers that looked at each other with raised arms; until some frightening figures, like ghosts, appeared, looking like disquieting hairy creatures, completely covered by grass and tar. They were two dozens at most, and those kind of cloaks that they wore were so thick and dark that no faces could be seen, also because those were half-hidden by the thick, still drenched collars; some were armed with rifles, others with bows and arrows, and a few just with simple daggers.

The flagbearer took a few steps forwards, while those grassy monsters kept him at gunpoint, and in an absolute silence he threw the French banner on the ground, just in time to run up and help the General, whose heart had at last given out under the weight of such a humiliation.

* * *

The defeat of the French, however, did not significantly improved the situation of the battle as a whole, that was becoming more and more worrisome.

The British reinforcements had in a few minutes taken the whole western half of the valley, and were now quickly advancing towards the Russian lines.

The infantry units sent by Katyusha to support the already engaged forces deployed while marching, but it was already apparent, when the first volleys were fired, why the General had tried in any way to avoid a pitched battle with his men.

It was one thing to charge befuddled units, with the number and the atmosphere on their side, it was another thing to watch one's friend die beside you, and realize that it had been only a matter of inches that the bullet had not ended his own.

The limits of the Russian army were now coming to the forefront as a dramatic reality, and at the moment there was nothing that could be done to avoid that slow, trickling loss.

Nonna and her cavalry stood right up the hill, unable to move; to try and face the British infantry meant to expose their own infantry's right flank to a cavalry charge, while charging the cavalry meant providing nice targets to the artillery deployed on the hill behind them a long time before the clash.

It was a situation with no way out.

Katyusha was trying to keep her self control, confident that an upset was still possible.

But in the eyes of the British command the picture that was beginning to form was one of a decisive victory, despite everything; maybe a costlier than predicted one, but the final outcome was the same.

Who was not cheering in that whole mess was Cardigan, who had spent all that time rooted in the valley to the north with his men, standing stupidly still before the Russian lines, mainly artillery ones, deployed on the other side of the valley. Once more, again, he would have to figure as a mere spectator to the engagement, and the only thing that soothed his nerves was that Lucan, standing a few dozen yards behing him licking his wounds, would have to shut up, after that poor show of his.

With a desperate effort, or maybe because they were more afraid of disappointing their commander than they were of enemy bullets, the Russian foot soldiers managed to join their already engaged companions, but despite that they kept losing more and more ground before the advance of the Allied division.

The sight of the Russians that were barely hanging by, just a push away from running away, through his spyglass was the best ever sight that Raglan could recall watching from the day he had set foot in Crimea.

"Let's end this. Order Lord Cardigan to engage those Cossacks on the hill and provide a diversion. Meanwhile, Lord Lucan ought to take advantage of that to flank that artillery formation in the northern valley and take it from behind."

"Aye, My Lord."

* * *

Lord Cardigan welcomed the aide from the base camp like the Second Coming, but, just as he heard the content of the message and the relative orders, he went postal.

"What does it mean, diversion?" he thundered, enraged. "The enemy cannons are right before us, and the Cossacks are spent by now! We just need a quick attack, and then it's all open towards the enemy encampment!"

"Would you like to kill yourself?" was Lucan's annoyed reply. "When was it ever heard of a cavalry unit making a frontal attack an artillery position?"

"They're Russians! They don't recognize the breech from the mount."

"Haven't we been licked enough for today? Now, please order your mean to prepare to advance, and stop behaving like a damn fool!"

The thought of having to coordinate with Lucan was enough to give him a stroke, but that of having to be his shield while Lucan went and covered himself in glory by opening the way to victory was enough to make him consider putting his pistol's barrel in his mouth, out of anger and shame.

But still, nothing could be done about it; so, under his command, the Light Brigade began a slow trot, followed closely by Lucan's men.

The plan was simple by itself; move towards the Cossacks deployed on the hills as if they wanted to engage them. At the last moment, the Heavy Brigade would leave the formation, too late to be intercepted, and would have made for the left flank of the main Russian battery in the northern valley, overwhelming them. With that, the road to the main Russian camp wide open, the Russian General would have to choice but to order a withdrawal, and further losses of infantry units would be avoided.

Cardigan was even more ashen than usual, and his own aid didn't have the heart to speak to him, such was his annoyed expression. He turned his glare now forwards, now towards his left, now to the back to look for Lucan, and it was as if he could see him laughing at him, mocking him about how he would once more function as his stepping stone for the glory.

"Brigade! At my command!" he bellowed, his saber raised. "To the left!"

"But, My Lord..." the aide tried to say.

Unfortunately, Cardigan was not alone in his Brigade to share the belief that the lack of regard from above for their men was supremely offensive. Therefore, several welcomed their commander's orders with elation.

From high above the hill, Raglan and his staff looked on, astonished, at the sight of the five whole regiments of light cavalry that, all of a sudden and with no evident reason, deviated from the preordained path, slipping once more into the valley and going straight for the Russian batteries.

"What in blazes is Cardigan doing? He has to flank those batteries, not charge them!"

Lucan was likewise speechless, but, unlike the higher ranked officers, took just a few seconds to decide what to do.

"Halt!" he ordered his men, leading them by example. "Halt!"

Everybody immediately obeyed, standing there watching the Light Brigade that was picking up speed, getting farther and farther away.

"My Lord, perhaps we should go with them."

"I don't have the slightest inclination to go to my death because of that madman." Lucan replied, before ordering to double back. "Return to our starting positions!"


	20. Chapter 20

20

"The madman has a death wish." was Katyusha's blunt statement at the sight of the Light Brigade advancing straight at her artillery.

The reaction of Lieutenant Tolstoj, in this circumstance promoted to post commander, was more or less the same, with the difference that he kept his observations to himself, worrying only about ordering himself to prepare themselves.

Cardigan ordered slow trot, unfazed even when from the batteries on the hill to his left began coming the first shots, that luckily were completely lacking in precision.

For their part, the artillerists of the main battery completely ignored, at least at first, the array of small-caliber guns placed one near to the other in a single, very long line, concentrating only on the longer-ranged ones placed at the back.

But those themselves, once loaded, inexplicably did not open fire.

The British commanded in his mind felt that something was amiss, but by then it was too late to have second thoughts. Just as one of the shots coming from the side hit true, taking away men and horses, he gave the order.

"Light Brigade, charge!"

The lancer in the van lowered their weapons, and from slow trot they went to furious gallop, announced by the fanfare of the bugler riding in the middle of the formation.

"Fire!" commanded at that Tolstoj.

This time, it was the small guns that fired; but it was the way they were being used that left Cardigan and his men completely dumbfounded.

Rather than all together, the shells came in very close sequence, with a single gunner who, running with the botefeux in hand, fired them all one after the other; the result was that the shells came in a veritable never-ending burst. Moreover, even though slightly, the elevation of each gun was slightly different, ensuring that each shell hit the ground where the enemy cavalry was riding.

Cardigan and his horsemen were hit with a rain of gunfire, and soon a large number of men ended up killed or thrown off their horses, and the gunfire's sequence was such that at each step one ran the risk of buying it.

But despite that, and notwithstanding the sight of his horsemen falling by the dozen, Cardigan refused to give up, ordering the bugler to keep up sounding the charge.

Unfortunately for him, that was just the beginning.

Like a wood emerging out of nowhere, in an second thickets of stakes literally sprung out of the ground, forming a barrier that almost completely covered the central section of the battlefield.

Many of the horsemen who had survived the gun's onslaught didn't even have the time to stop, ending up crashing against that wall come out of nowhere; some horses even stopped dead in their tracks, throwing their riders off their saddles and sending up to be speared by the sharp points, under the shocked and terrorized eyes of their companions.

But the worst was yet to come.

Because those stakes were not just a wall; they were also a canopy. Under them, and now on their backs, there were some narrow and long trenches, deep enough to allow a respectable number of men to crouch in there.

A score of rifles appeared from behind the edge while the horsemen were still trying to reorganize themselves, just as, on the hill at their backs, Lieutenant Tolstoj was raising his arm while glancing at the guns.

"Fire!"

What followed was, plainly said, a slaughter. For the riflemen, it was like a shooting gallery at point-blank range, with targets impossible to miss even to the greenest recruit ever; also, in the meantime the gunners had managed to reload one gun in three, that, together with the guns at their backs and those on the other hill, turned that small space before the barricades in a veritable slaughter-house.

Men and horses were blown apart by the hundreds, unable to react, and the few who had been lucky enough to survive were finished off by the following charge of the infantrymen, who, coming out of their trenches, ran to stab those who were still not realizing their defeat, at the same time taking a large number of prisoners.

The long history of the British light cavalry had come to an end.

* * *

With the success in the north valley, the Russian forces were dominating in two out of three portions of the battlefield.

Unfortunately, though, in the most important one the situation was by all means the opposite.

Completely unaware on how their fellow soldiers had by then command of most of the battlefield, the Russian infantrymen engaged against their British counterparts kept falling back, especially since the gunfire duel had been supplanted by hand-to-hand combat.

From high above Katyusha, although aware of the victory on the other two section, looked more and more worried; defeating the British and French light cavalry would have meant little if the price to pay was to be the almost complete decimation of her own infantry. Not to mention that that was nothing more than an intermediate battle, since the battle to end all others was still awaiting them twelve miles to the west, before the walls of Sevastopol.

To the Allies winning was not the most important thing in the end, just stopping them was enough, or even damaging them enough to make impossible for them to keep advancing; and they were managing that, despite everything.

"General, perhaps we ought to withdraw while we still can." Liprandi said.

"At this point it would be useless." Katyusha replied, her fisted hands shaking.

"We have destroyed their light cavalry and defeated the French." another one chanced. "Perhaps this would give us enough time to raise another army."

"Have you looked all around you, bunch of fools?" the little girl thundered, raging. "Farmers, carpenters, smiths! This is our army! And to put it together we emptied the country from here to Chelyabinsk! Were will we find another army if we retreat now?"

No one dared object to that, but despite her vehemence, Katyusha in her mind was the first one to know that, by then, the chances to get through that valley unscathed were dwindling to nothing; she had already lost at least a quarter of her strength, and the cost for a now unlikely victory was such that it was wishful thinking to hope to bring relief to the besieged city.

Then, the miracle.

An aide came running, out of breath, to bring an unexpected new, to say the least.

"General! A small unit is advancing from the north, straight towards the British encampment. Heavy cavalry."

"Who are they?" asked Liprandi. "Ottomans?"

"I couldn't say, Your Excellency. They do look European. Prussians, perhaps. But they show no ensigns nor flags."

In a matter of minutes, the sound of a big trumpet, like a call from Heaven, strongly echoed in the whole valley, announcing the appearance, from the north, just to the left of the British base, of a strong and rather threatening horse division, that popped out of the hills like demons from Hell, clad in gloomy and almost anachronistic black ceremonial armours and armed with lances, muskets and pistols.

"Who in the devil are those?" said as one Katyusha and Lord Raglan.

The British commander, though, was soon able to recognize those armors, and those peculiars crested helmets.

"Those are horsemen from Württemberg! What are they doing here?"

Katyusha instead had to ask for a spyglass to make them out, but as she recognized herself those dark green uniforms she was almost disbelieving.

"Sister!"

The Württemberg commander, a youngster with long black hair in a ponytail, awaited a few moments, then he raised his sabre against the sky.

"Forwards!" he yelled, and at his command a hundred and fifty horsemen threw themselves down the hill, aiming right at the British lines.

The artillery positions, caught completely by surprise, were overcome like many pins, and at that Nonna, recovering from her shock, likewise spurred her men on.

"Attack!"

The Cossacks went straight for the Heavy Brigade of Lucan, who, astonished but very much meaning to fight to the bitter end, ordered a counter-charge, leading to a mighty clash of cavalry in which the Cossacks quickly gained the upper hand.

In a short while, another small group of riders of Württemberg appeared from a ridge in the valley, and Katyusha was left speechless when, aiming her spyglass in their direction, saw that no one but her beloved sister Olga was leading them, having left behind the luxurious court dressed was now clad in an elegant blue officer's coat under a breastplate.

And she was not alone; because at her side, like a zealous bodyguard, was riding Virginia who, even before the unit had gone and smashed into the flank of the enemy infantry engaged in the brutal hand-to-hand clash, pounced upon the unfortunate Englishmen like an Angel of Death, immediately beginning to tear them apart.

"Your Highness!" Katyusha heard the call, and she turned to see Nina, Aina and the other maids, covered with dust and tired beyond belief, making their war towards her.

"Girls!"

"Please forgive us, Highness." said Nina. "We came as quickly as we could."

"You did exceedingly well."

In a matter of minutes, the situation turned upside down, and for the last time.

Because two hundred horsemen were not, by themselves, a force strong enough to decide a battle; but when it was horsemen of Württemberg one was talking about, that was another matter altogether.

Faced with those unexpected reinforcements, the Russian infantrymen regained belief and called for the last of their energy, eventually succeeding in breaking the resistance of the British who, in groups whose size began to increase more and more, began to fall back and run away.

At that point, rather than suffering the humiliation of seeing his whole army broken and fleeing, Lord Raglan made the only possible choice.

"Sound retreat!" he said in a barely audible whisper.

His staff at first refused to believe they had heard that, but in the end they had to face the inevitable.

From bugle to bugle, the order reached the battlefield as just a few units were stubbornly fighting on, and at the sight of the Alliance soldiers that were abandoning the field to run away, it was saluted with a mighty roar of joy.

The Russian army was left in command of the field.

They had won.

* * *

As the time of celebrations went past, it came the time for the butcher's bill.

On the whole, the Allies, Ottomans and French included, had left on the field almost half of their army, between killed, wounded and prisoners; the Light Brigade had been completely annihilated, the Heavy Brigade halved, while the infantry, counting all the divisions and regiments engaged, had fared only slightly better. The Ottomans, taking the hint, had thought better and had buggered off with barely a fight; but the biggest success had to be the one obtained versus the French, whose very General was now sitting among the POWs, closely guarded together with his men, under the shadow of a canopy a small distance away from the tent of the enemy General.

The Russians themselves, though, had ended up paying a higher price than Katyusha had hoped for, with almost a third of her forces dead on the field or unable to fight on, especially among the light infantry.

Just as Katyusha was getting from Nonna the report on the losses, Olga reached the space before the tent, accompanied by Virginia and by the trusted Captain Loehner.

"Sister." said Katyusha, with admirable restraint, that left Olga herself stunned for a moment. "Thank you for your help. You were most welcome."

At that Olga ran her hand just like many times before, but this time Katyusha's reaction was by all means opposite; she looked almost embarrassed at the thought of being treated like a child before her staff.

"Who are you, exactly?" she asked her with a smile. "What happened to little Katyusha, who used to hide in the folds of my skirt?"

"I might ask you the same. What's with that dress?"

"I couldn't just charge the British in my coach and dressed in an evening gown. Luckily, our father was sharp enough to give me the appropriate education since I was ten.

But, compared to you, this is nothing. What happened to you?"

"It's a long story. Maybe I'll tell you later. In any case, when I sent Nina and the others to seek help, I would have never expected that they'd run into you."

"Luckily for you, we had to go through Kiev because of a few incidents on the Polish border. And when the girls explained me everything, I couldn't believe them."

"About that... Are you sure you won't have any problems? I mean, Württemberg is not involved in the war, and I wouldn't want to..."

"Until proven otherwise, I'm still a Grand Duchess of Russia. These men are my bodyguards. How I employ them is my decision and mine alone."

"That makes sense." laughed Virginia.

In that moment, a huge noise was heard, and in a short while a couple of soldiers strode forwards, bringing with them a weird young man, sharply dressed and tied up like a hog.

"General." one of them said, throwing the man right at Katyusha's feet. "We happened upon this man while he was trying to get into our camp-"

"Wait, this is a misunderstanding!" piped up the poor guy, laboriously getting to his feet. "I can assure you I have no ill intentions."

Katyusha went up to him, looking straight into his eyes.

"Are you British?"

"My name is William Russel. I am a war correspondent."

"A what?" said Olga.

"A journalist. I was following Lord Raglan and the British army. But then I saw you, so imperious and so fearless. I just had to get to know you."

"Yes, he's undoubtedly an Englishman." stated Virginia. "Nobody else can speak in such a honeyed way, when it comes to butter up people."

"Please, let me come with you. I want everyone in Great Britain to know of you and of your genius. What you have done. What you are. Everybody must know who you are."

Katyusha gave him a long glare, like a cat with a trapped mouse, turning poor William's blood to ice; then, unsheathing her dagger, she cut the cord that tied him up.

"If I hear that you're double-dealing or something, the next thing to be cut will be your family jewels."

The thing left pretty much everyone surprised, especially because of the way the General had stared at her new British friend before freeing him; but not Olga, who brought her mouth close to Nonna's ear.

"I might be wrong, but somebody here is already stoking her own ego." she commented, eliciting a small laugh from the girl.

Even before Russel was dismissed, before Katyusha another prisoner was brought, this time by the very hands of Lieutenant Tolstoj; unlike the young British journalist, the newcomer was dressed in a British cavalry uniform, and the General only had to look for the chevrons to understand that she was dealing with Lord Cardigan himself.

"We found him among the corpses before the stockade, General. He has a few scratches, but nothing else."

Realizing he was before the enemy General, Cardigan called for the last of his strength and of his dignity, and snapped to attention.

"Lieutenant Colonel James Brudenell, Earl of Cardigan, commanding officer of the Light Brigade of Her Majesty." he solemnly stated to Liprandi.

"You are talking to the wrong person, Lord Cardigan." answered Liprandi in a strange tone, before gesturing towards Katyusha.

At that Cardigan, not without apparent shock, saluted once more, this time to the right person.

"I offer you my congratulations, General. With your innovative tactics, you have overcome the most victorious unit of the British army."

"It was not prepared for that." Katyusha coldly replied. "I thought I had to stop infantry units, not six hundreds madmen anxious to die."

"We have done our duty. Like each soldiers worth his name should strive to do."

"A soldier's duty is to do his best to win, not to go and kill himself. Why did you not try a flanking maneuver?"

At that question, Cardigan hesitated, earning himself an even more disquieting and threatening glare from his counterpart.

"You wanted to grab all the glory for yourself, didn't you? Didn't you stop and think that it could be dangerous? Even discounting the tactic we had prepared, who would throw himself against the muzzles of a deployed artillery unit with no support at all?"

"We do what we are ordered to do. That is the duty of a soldier." Cardigan replied, in the tone of someone who is quickly losing his patience.

"I had heard of the British commander, Lord Raglan. And I shall never believe that he might have ordered such a foolhardy action. I rather believe you have disobeyed his orders and done your own thing. And that qualifies you as a deserter, other than as a fool." Then Katyusha made a gesture towards Lieutenant Tolstoj. "Tie him up."

Cardigan, despite his protests, was thus tied up with his arms behind his back; then, again on Katyusha's instructions, he was forced onto his knees.

"What are you doing?" he screamed.

All of his bravado and arrogance however disappeared in the moment when he saw Katyusha unsheathe her pistol and walk to his back.

That made even Liprandi, Nonna and Olga gape in astonishment.

"Katyusha, what do you want to do?"

"Take out the trash."

"But, General, the customs of war..." Liprandi feebly protested, only to be silenced at once by a glare that was nothing short of terrible.

All around them a complete silence fell down, and a small crowd formed quickly, standing by immobile and shocked at the sight of Katyusha who, stoically, brought the pistol's barrel onto Cardigan's nape.

"S...Stop!" screeched the British colonel, shaking like a leaf and sweating up a storm. "You can't do that! I'm an officer of the British army! I have a right to..."

"A man that sends his men to die in that way out of pride is no officer, is merely a buffoon in a uniform."

"No! Please! Don't do it! Please, no!"

Katyusha's finger clamped onto the trigger, and just as the hammer fell harmlessly, Cardigan rolled in the dust, as his pants and the dirt around them took on a yellow hue. In his eyes there was pure terror, but it was only hearing the soldiers' laughter all around him that he fully comprehended what had happened.

At the General's gesture, Cardigan was once more brought to his feet, so that everyone could see what was running down his pants.

"You'll come with us. And maybe you'll learn how a battle is led." said Katyusha, and at her command Tolstoj and another soldier took him away towards the huts.

The whole show had been seen, other than by the soldiers and officers from Russia, by all the other prisoners as well, and Canrobert himself almost pissed himself when he saw Katyusha quickly making her way towards him.

"I presume you are the French commander, am I right?"

"Y...Yes, sir." he answered, with a salute. "General Canrobert. French Imperial Army. I take full responsibility for our defeat. The decision to surrender was my own. I just ask to guarantee the safety of my soldiers."

The two stared at each other for a long time, and Canrobert was left speechless for a moment when, with a pleased smile, Katyusha offered him her hand.

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, General."

"F...For me as well, sir." he replied shaking that hand, although with a few mental reserves.

"You did the best you could. It takes no small courage to admit defeat. If your men are still alive is because you acknowledged you had lost, and that is worth of respect.

Don't worry, they'll be treated with all due considerations. You'll understand that you and your men will have to be confined to the back lines until negotiations for your release can be begun. In the meantime, I'll give orders for you to be brought to Kiev with the next convoy."

"You have my thanks, General."

Having gone through this formality as well, Katyusha went back to the command tent to discuss the situation with the staff.

"Gentlemen. I have to take upon myself my responsibilities. This battle cost up more than I thought it would. I don't know if it's because of bad luck or because of my decisions, but what matters now is that our chances to relieve Sevastopol have been considerably reduced."

"We still have two thirds of our initial strength, and the support of Grand Duchess Olga." Liprandi offered.

"Two hundred horsemen are not enough to swing the balance of a war the other way, even if it's horsemen of Württemberg we're talking about. About our men, the few who are not wounded are now tired, not to mention that we've lost most of our Cossack cavalry.

Faced with that situation, Katyusha fisted her hands and grit her teeth, feeling the weight of a huge frustration.

"At this point, the only available solution would be to coordinate an attack with the units inside the city. If we link up with my brother's forces, perhaps the situation would change for the better."

The officers looked between themselves, well aware like her of how difficult such a proposition was.

"General, the city is completely surrounded. There are one mile and a half of trenches and field fortifications all along the outer perimeter, and the inner harbor is filled with mines. It's impossible even to communicate with Sevastopol."

"Actually..." Lieutenant Tolstoj, invited for the occasion, stepped forwards. "There might be a solution to that."


	21. Chapter 21

21

Lying flat on the low grass, Katyusha, Nonna, Tolstoj and Olga were watching, from above a hill overlooking the zone, the state of Sevastopol, a few miles' away and completely in the dark, except for the moonlight.

Although the northern side of the canal was still open and under Russian control, the settlement and the area around the harbour along the southern strait were completely surrounded, and the traces of the siege very visible both inside and outside the walls.

The siege front was divided in three sectors, with the British garrisoning the central zone and the French on their sides; this formed a picture of an almost uninterrupted line of trenches, redoubts and artillery posts deployed in a half-circle, a lone line at least three miles and a half long and wide up to one and a half, from the outlet to the sea to the West to the shores of the Chyornaya towards the East.

The only open point were the two gorges that started from the tip of the secondary canal and surrounded the highest hill, of those overlooking the city; but that was hardly an issue for the British positions around it, since from there they could fire at anything for miles, fact that had led them to acutely place them quite a lot of artillery, mortars and naval guns.

The walls of the city had already been leveled for the most part, but the Russian defenders had ably managed to do makeshift repairs, other than taking advantage of the peculiar conformation of the ground to organize a series of bottlenecks and forced passages that would have turned any attempt to storm them into a programmed suicide.

Luckily, both the Quarantine Bastion, perched on the cliff at the edge of the canal and the Malakov Fort, protecting the harbor, were still in Imperial hands, although the French lines were barely a few dozen yards away from the walls, and in all likelihood it was a matter of days before they would fall.

And on the sea, the situation was hardly better; one only had to turn his gaze less than a mile away from the shore to understand how the waters off the city were by then under complete control of the British fleet; on their side, the Russians hadn't had any better idea than that to deliberately scuttle a few of their best ships in the shallow waters at the edge of the harbour, to use them as static batteries.

To tell the truth, despite the fact that those ships had surely absorbed an incredible number of shells, likewise some forts guarding the canal looked in good order still, probably thanks to the relentless work of the carpenters and seamen commanded by Admiral Nachimov.

"Virginia wasn't joking when she talked about hell." Katyusha commented, for the occasion clad in a dark cloak.

"You shouldn't have come here, Katyusha." Olga said. "This could be very dangerous."

"The same goes for you." the little girl replied, before turning towards Tolstoj. "Then? Where is that mine of yours?"

"Right there." answered the young officer, pointing towards a few isolated cabins, clearly abandoned, huddled to the side of a low rocky ridge.

"Then let's move."

* * *

Quietly, almost crawling on the ground, the foursome descended from the hill and advanced among the fields. A couple of times they had to hide quickly to avoid a few British patrols, but in the end, with no unplanned snags, they managed to reach a large hole in the stone covered by debris, with a very apparent sign warning of the danger.

"Why didn't they even bother to watch this?" Nonna asked, while she helped Tolstoj opening a passage.

"The mine collapsed years ago, after it was flooded. It's possible they dug too close to the sea. But I heard from a friend that was posted here that the flooding involved only the final part of the tunnel."

It took almost an hour to open a gap in the debris, and even before the passage was completely cleared, from within came a nauseating smell, like unhealthy air, that almost caused poor Olga and her unfortunately untrained nose a good round of retching.

"What is this?" asked the Grand Duchess, covering her nose.

"When the tunnel flooded, part of the ceiling collapsed. So now the mine is connected to the sewer system of the city. We'll go through there."

"We'll have to walk though the sewers?!"

"What is the matter?" chuckled Katyusha. "Afraid you'll get your pretty little shoes dirty?"

"You know, I liked you better as you were before." replied Olga with the same sarcastic tone.

"You'll have to get used to that. Now let's go."

Therefore, equipped with torches, the foursome entered the tunnel, and despite all of her bravado even Katyusha had to call upon all of her strength to not hurl because of that hellish smell.

As predicted by Tolstoj the mine had been flooded in a few sections, but in the part closest to the exit, the water was not higher than twenty inches luckily, so they managed to proceed without too much trouble.

Between the risk to get lost in some lateral shaft and that of even a small noise threatening a definitive collapse of an already unstable structure, they took a few hours to get through those few hundred yards, at last reaching a small central cove above which, other than a big gap, they could make out the vaults of the ancient Roman-era structures, reduced to storing foul-smelling sewage.

"There it is." said Tolstoj, who now had nothing to do but throw rope with grappling hook that he had carried with him.

Luckily, even Olga and Katyusha knew how to climb a rope, and with a few jumps the four of them were finally inside the city.

Katyusha felt more than a little sadness in seeing the last remnant of the old Cherson insulted in such a way, but she tried her best to keep her disappointment to herself.

"Over here." said Tolstoj, pointing west.

The smell in there was, if any, even worse of what they had breathed in the mine, so all of them picked up the pace, anxious to get out in the open. Luckily, their hunger for fresh, clean air had not dulled Nonna's sixth sense, so that she first saw, as they got to a few dozen yards away from a huge arc closed off by a gate, an unmistakable flash.

"Get down!" she yelled, instinctively grabbing Katyusha and dragging her to the ground.

Fortunately Olga and Tolstoj were just as quick, and that meant that they were not shot up by a couple of bullets fired one after the other.

"Who goes there?" a voice yelled, as the shapes of two Russian marines with their rifles aimed at them could be made out.

"Usually 'who goes there' comes BEFORE the shot, you idiot!" roared Katyusha, flipping out.

Slowly, and without lowering their weapons, the two got closer.

"Who are you?" asked the higher-ranking one.

This time, Katyusha only had to show her face for the two poor saps to feel their blood turn to ice.

"I'm the one who will have the two of you dragged before the firing squad if you don't tell me at once where I can find my brother!"

* * *

Correctly believing that the offices of the Russian Black Sea Fleet or the other major buildings were too much of an inviting target for the enemy guns, Prince Aleksandr had placed his headquarters in the austere Chapel of Saint Vladimir, the same place where, according to legend, the first sovereign of the Kievan Rus' had received his baptism, becoming the forefather of the future Russian nation.

Although by night the bombardment slowed down almost to a stop, the Prince often struggled to get some sleep, agitated by the many responsibilities vested on him.

Even making the two halves of the city, separated by the secondary canal, work together was a challenging feat in those times, and that was but one of the many problems to face, in a situation that was getting more dramatic with each passing day.

Therefore, he spent his night awake, sitting in the tiny room converted in a small study, reading up papers, writing reports and writing letters to his family, at the feeble light of a few candles.

The announcement that messengers had come from beyond the frontline came to him totally unexpected, but that was nothing compared to the face he made when he saw before him, covered in dirty cloaks and with boots caked with unspeakable sludge, his two sisters in the flesh.

"Brother." said Katyusha with some joy, but with not nearly the enthusiasm of yore. "Happy to see that you are well, despite this hell of a situation."

"What in the world are the two of you doing here?"

"Ask your little sister here." replied Olga, pointing downwards. "Although I must say, in all honesty, that I'm not so sure that this... thing here is actually our sister Ekaterina."

"Why we are here is rather evident, I would say." Katyusha cut to the chase. "And I see that the situation is much worse than what I expected.

We have to hurry and get down to talking. Where are Nachimov and the other commanders?"

"Nachimov is in the harbour, aboard the _Veliki Kniaz Konstantin_, Totleben is at Malakoff. He's overseeing the maintenance of the fort. Kornilov died last week. A granade took away half his face."

"Great God, then who is in command of the Second Fleet?"

Incredibly, Alexsandr lowered his eyes; all of a sudden, and without a logic, standing there before Ekaterina had the same effect upon him as if it were his father.

"I see, it seems that here there's a lot of things to fix. Nonna!"

"General?"

"Go to the harbour, and kick that good-for-nothing Nachimov out of his bed. Tolstoj."

"Sir."

"You can move like a rat, so sneak down to Malakoff and get Totleben here. I want both of them reporting to me in two hours."

"Aye, sir!"

The two immediately got out of there, while Olga was allowed to go take a bath before fainting out of that smell on her, leaving Katyusha and her brother alone.

"I don't know what happened to you in these last three months and I don't care much to know, but I warn you, this is no game."

"Menshikov said the same thing." Katyusha coldly replied. "Before I holed him in the leg."

It was then that Aleksandr completely realized how truthful were Olga's words, seriously asking himself who was that little girl in a uniform that was standing before him; whoever she was, she had only the looks of the old Ekaterina, and little else.

"And now, if you allow me, I would like a report on the condition of our ground forces. Getting here costed more than I hoped for, therefore the units inside the city will be needed to organize a counterattack."

"I am afraid that this will be difficult." answered Aleksandr, deadly serious.

"And what do you mean with that?"

To make the answer to that question as clear as possible, Aleksandr himself took his sister on the lone building in the whole city to be dimly lit, an enormous shed built over the old Roman forum, a few yards under the ground level, and thus more protected from gunfire.

The Prince only had to move aside the curtains for Katyusha to see an infinite stretch of thin, pale and to various degrees moribund men, amid an uninterrupted choir of coughs, groans and cries for help.

And then, the smell; compared to that, the one in the sewers was like that of wildflowers in some open field.

Katyusha had never seen something like that, but nonetheless took barely a second to understand.

"Cholera."

"A month ago one of their mortars took out our main water tank. We tried to boil the water, but clearly that was not enough. To add to that, the bombardment uncovered the sewers and destroyed a few pumps for water drainage. There are small lakes and puddles of filthy water everywhere."

"And how many men did you lose already?"

"Three thousand. And more than twice as many have been invalidated, or in any case won't be in shape for a fight for a long time."

When he had called the situation serious, Katyusha had largely underestimated the real measure of such a definition.

It was not a serious situation: it was a disaster.

And it was up to her to whip up something.

* * *

In less than two hours, the whole brass of the defence forces of Sevastopol, those left at least, were reunited in the Prince's study for a general report.

Captain Totleben was still smelling like the turpentine with which he was fixing the guns of Malakoff before he had been called, Nachimov instead had the face of a man who, despite having been dragged from his bed, hadn't had a good night's sleep in forever.

"Gentlemen." Katyusha began with no qualms whatsoever. "Considering the circumstances, I am surprised I have found someone still alive around here. Looking at how the situation is playing out, it's a miracle the city hasn't already been turned into a heap of smoking rubble.

Now, first things first. From now on, I'm in command. And I suppose you don't have any objections about it."

No one made a peep: for some reason, everyone in there was convinced that the bit about Prince Menshikov wasn't a fairy tale.

"Very good. In this case, I'll cut to the chase. We have killed no less than seven thousand British and French at Balaklava, and even though that cost us almost as many men, the French commander is already in our hands. In another situation, I would have suggested to take advantage at once of this favorable moment to organize a combined attack from the inside and the outside of the city, but this has clearly become impossible.

We are too few, and too disorganized. It's possible that cholera is hurting them as much as we are, but I won't confide in that to turn the tide."

"Considering what has happened at Balaklava." observed Totleben. "I am surprised that they haven't begun to demobilize."

"Because they know they don't need to. We have suffered grievous losses as well, and they have entrenched themselves so well that they are well aware, as I am, that mounting a direct attack against their positions means suicide."

The little girl then turned her gaze on the maps of the city, in which the advancing Allied lines were indicated, albeit with some approximation.

"I hate to say this, but perhaps right now the best thing to do would be to stall for time. We'll isolate the healthy men from the sick even further, and we'll create sub-sections to make a selection according to the sickness' gravity. Those who have light symptoms will receive immediate care to allow them to recuperate quickly, while the most serious conditions will have long-term care.

What matters most is having the greatest available number of men in the short term. With that, hoping in the meantime that the enemy won't receive reinforcements, we'll be able to mount a coordinated attack."

At that, Nachimov and Totleben lowered their gazes, and then exchanged another worriedly.

"What is the matter?" Katyusha asked.

"Actually..." the admiral stammered. "We might have a problem."

"Wait." said Aleksandr. "We don't even know if those news are true."

"What are you talking about?"

"Six days ago some Greek insurgents managed to get into the city." explained Nachimov. "They told us of a small fleet of British and French steamers off Tserigo."

Katyusha was left speechless for a moment, but immediately after she tried to reassert her self-control to properly judge the matter.

"Do you believe they're bound here?" asked Totleben.

"No, I don't think so. If it's actually a 'small fleet', there would be no reason to deploy it here. For what London and Paris know, at the moment there are more than enough ships to keep up the siege." With that, Katyusha quickly got a map of the northern Black Sea, unrolling it before the council and pointing to the Kerch Strait. "In my opinion, they're bound for here."

"In the Sea of Azow?" said Aleksandr.

"It has some logic. Both Kerch and Taganrog are important supply bases for both Sevastopol and our forces in the Caucasus. If they fall, not only would our supply lines be cut, but the enemy would gain control of the whole eastern Crimea. Not to mention that, after that, my troops at Balaklava would be like rats before the trap-"

Gritting her teeth out of anger and sense of impotence, Katyusha once more felt that intolerable feeling of having no viable choice left.

"We have no choice." she hissed, disgruntled. "We have to break this siege, and we have to do it within the next five days."

"Why, within five days?" Nachimov asked.

"Because it's the time left before London and Paris know what has happened at Balaklava and send further reinforcements. Between that and the more than likely fall of the harbors in the Sea of Azow, we'd be better off burning down the city ourselves rather than give them the satisfaction of doing it themselves."

"So, then? What should we do?"

The answer was the most obvious thing one could conceive, but it was the kind of enterprise that nobody even dared to consider.

"The Allies came here aboard their ships. And on their ships they'll go home. We take them out of the picture, and they'll lay down arms, rather than be butchered in this hellhole."

At that statement, everyone present blanched.

"Do you mean engage the Allied fleet?"

"Unless you'd rather stay here waiting for this city to be razed, yes, this is the only thing that we can do."

"But that is impossible!" let out Aleksandr. "The enemy fleet is four times ours, and they have full control on every square inch of sea outside the harbour."

"His Imperial Highness is right, General." added Nachimov. "Not to mention, their mortars and guns deployed on the overlooking hills can target everything in the small canal and inside the harbor. We'd be smashed to pieces before we'd have the jetty."

"You have been on the sea for forty years, Nachimov." was Katyusha's curt reply. "You ought to know that there are no hopeless situations."

A cold draught entered through a crack in the wall, making the flames of the candle waver, and further chilling the bones and the spirits of everyone.

"Cursed be this fall." protested Totleben who, despite being accustomed at lingering in less than healthy climates, as a good descendant from a Prussian family wholeheartedly hated the rigid Russian climate.

That small gust of wind caused a completely different reaction in Katyusha, who, as if enlightened, turned her eyes towards the window; the sky was clear, and the moon, round and big, was peeking from behind the clouds, that were quickly making their way as shadows in the dark, spurred on by the strong high-altitude wind.

"I've got it!" she bellowed. "Do you have cold rooms in the city?"

"Cold storage rooms?" asked Aleksandr. "Yes, there are several."

"Good! Empty them!"

"For what reason?" asked a confused Totleben. "Right now the food in the depots is more than enough, and it has already been salted."

"I'm not talking about the food, you nincompoop! And now, listen carefully."

* * *

Even before dawn, strange movements began to take place within the city.

Any soldier still able to stand on his feet and not occupied in guarding some place was quietly dragged from his bed, with no fanfare at all, with the order to report to his commander as soon as possible.

In a little while, long chains of people were formed, busy going to and fro the three cold rooms of the city, in complete silence, entering with empty hands and getting out weighed out by large wooden crates covered in frost, often carried by two or more people, and in any case always with hands protected by some rags.

Others, more unfortunate, had been forced to cover their noses and mouths as much as possible and to wander into the several open-air sewers that had been inaugurated by enemy shells pretty much everywhere, pulling up with great effort gallons and gallons of putrid liquid that was then sealed off in casks and loaded into carts that then started towards the city's outskirts.

Even the common citizens, the few that were left, were invited to do their part, loading part of the crates taken from the cold rooms into the few small boats left to be brought aboard the ships already partially scuttled at the edge of the harbour, without making a peep and in the dark, to avoid being noticed.

As the city toiled, Katyusha once more went with her three companions to the same tunnel from which they had made their entrance.

"Now, is it all clear?"

"Crystal." replied her sister. "But are you sure you can pull it off?"

"Don't worry, I'll be fine. Just remember to do as I said."

"You can count on us."

Nonna hesitated; it was clear that the thought of getting away from her protegé wasn't making her comfortable at all.

But it was hard to blame her, considering what was being prepared.

"Now go. Before the dawn you have to be back with our troops. Remember. Three days from now."

"Don't you worry."

The three took a few steps, but before they could get past the gate Katyusha called them again.

"Hey..." she said, almost blushing. "Be careful."

"You as well." replied Nonna, forcing a smile on her face. "General."


	22. Chapter 22

The two days that followed saw a return to normal.

By day, the ships and the Anglo-French positions rained hell down on Sevastopol, focusing on the forts at the mouth of the harbour and along the defensive perimeter of the city.

Despite them being technically within range of the British batteries posted on the hill, the local commanders were all more or less in agreement that shooting at the twenty-odd still serviceable Russian ships, far away and small target, would have been a waste of ammo. Therefore, from the beginning, they had kept their guns on the fortifications protecting the roadstead, well aware that any vessel foolish enough to try and sortie would be a sitting duck.

By night, almost always, the guns fell silent. But actually, it was by nighttime that the Russians were most active, and right under the noses of the British, who didn't have the slightest idea of what their enemies were doing.

The wooden crates taken from the cold rooms, emptied by then, were now all over the city, especially close to the wells and other water sources, and each defensive fort had received a large amount of putrid water, other than other casks coming from the very field hospitals, the latter only carefully handled by the few lucky ones who had already survived cholera.

Everything went along with surprising coordination, especially thanks to the industrious and hard-working nature of the Russian people and of its soldiers, who, before taking up the rifle, were more often than not hunters, nomads and, in this peculiar case, fishermen.

Katyusha herself oversaw everything, at times taking more risks than what a person of her rank and her position would usually dare to, as when she visited the sick to see who could be still of use somehow, or when she inspected the forts right in the middle of a bombardment to personally verify their range, their rate of fire and the reliability of the gunners.

Thus, two days passed.

Then, in the night between the second and the third one, something happened that took the enemy completely by surprise.

Two o'clock had just sounded, when one of the watchmen aboard HMS _Britannia_, the flagship standing by the entrance of the bay, noticed some strange movements at the mouth of the harbour.

"Ho!" he said to the foremast watchman, who had almost dozed off out of boredom. "What goes over there?"

He focused, and shortly he was able to clearly see the shape of a large ship, likely a man-of-war, that was slipping out of the southern channel, slowly and dismasted, towed by a few small boats.

"Warn the deck." the watchmen told his colleague.

Fate wished that, as the man shouted for the watch officer, busy warming his insides with some grog against the cold, close by on the quarterdeck stood none other than Admiral James Dundas, Commander in Chief of the British Fleet, who was, as usual, fighting off insomnia with that unusual activity.

"What is it?"

"Movements in the harbor, Sir!"

So, it was the Admiral himself who took hold of a spyglass and looked at the situation beyond the fortified canal that separated the roadstead from the open sea.

The ship was moving slowly, showing off her side, and while the absence of light did not allow for a good look, it seemed that no more than a few dozen people were aboard here, busy signaling to the boats or manning the wheel.

Nothing new to be honest.

"They are towing another ship to the blockade." was the Admiral's conclusion. "They want to scuttle her."

"Should we beat to quarters, Sir?" asked the watch officer.

Dundas briefly thought it over, turning the spyglass over in his hands.

"No. At this range it would be a mere waste of ammo."

"Shouldn't we warn Lord Raglan?"

"Ye gods, no. It's the first night he got a fitful sleep, with no nightmares, since he came back from Balaklava. I haven't the slightest inclination of waking him up for such a small thing."

On the other hand, both the officer and the watchmen had a strange feeling, like a sixth sense matured in years of experience that did not allow them to rest easy; however, they were in no position to discuss orders.

"Keep an eye on that, and if something else happens call me." And, said that, the Admiral went for his quarters, hoping to get some sleep at last.

* * *

Yevpatoria, to the north of Sevastopol, had been one of the first Crimean cities to fall in the hands of the Allies at the beginning of the campaign.

In the care of the Ottoman troops, it had quickly become the main supply point for the troops deployed in the siege, from which they received, way more than foodstuff, weapons and powder.

Each week, or in any case at each request, a supply train with adequate escort went through the fifty-five miles that separated the two cities, bringing to the frontline everything the Allies needed to keep tightening the noose around the Russian defenses.

Predictably, several Ottoman commanders were less than enthused by this porter-like task, but for the soldiers looking for easy pay and definitely not wishing to be killed it was one hell of a destination.

Of course, the supply route needed to be guarded, therefore several squadrons, ranging from two to ten scouts kept patrolling without pause the main road and the fields around it, ready to report even the slightest threat.

Osman and Mehmed were young and foolish.

Friends from childhood, they had signed up for the army, enticed like many others by the promise of profit, therefore their assignment to the scouting corps was the best thing they could hope for; no shooting, no life in the trenches.

The only thing they had to do was to keep their eyes and ears wide open, take a good look around, and run like hell at the first sign of danger.

Living the life, pretty much.

That night, they were patrolling near the hot springs of Lake Seki, before the war a destination of many pleasure trips of the nobles of the region, who all loved taking both mud and normal baths in that foul-smelling water.

Many would have found that sulfurous and gaseous smell intolerable, but for the two of them, grown near the white falls of Pamukkale, it was like the smell of home.

The night was calm, but very cold.

It was by then November, and from the north the bitter Arctic wind, preparing to unleash on the region cold storms, was coming more and more with each passing day.

In that situation, the presence of some hot springs just a few yards' away was too strong a temptation to be able to resist.

Trying their best to ignore the fame that General Omar Pasha carried, able to chill the blood of the most irreproachable soldier at the thought of being surprised not doing his duty to the fullest, the two young soldiers soon turned their horses towards one of the several hot water tanks close to the lakeshore, more than eager to wash away the pains and the filth of a soldier's life with a nice hot bath.

However, before they even reached it, something happened.

At first, it was a kind of unclear whistling carried by the wing; then a singsong, like a call. At last, full-on singing.

Not just any singing; it was a melodious voice, worthy of a supernatural being.

Confused, the two friends followed that strange chant as if hypnotized, as in their minds the fading memories of the last time they had had the pleasure of a woman's company began to surface.

Leaving the horses, they walked up a small ridge, as the hot and humid fumes all around covered everything, giving them the feeling of walking into a place out of the physical world, with that melodious voice spurring them on.

At first they saw a faint light, as the singing grew louder and louder.

Then, when they finally reached it, their eyes and their faces turned to stone.

At the light of a few candles, a very young woman laid there, covered up to her breasts by the hot spring's water, with the fumes rising all around to be her only, evanescent cover; with the rose-coloured lips barely open, she kept singing that hypnotic melody, all the while gently massaging her skin, neither fair nor dark, shining like marble under the cover of the crusts of thermal salts.

She was so beautiful that she did not look human, and for a brief moment the two youngsters thought that they had died in some way that they couldn't remember, and had already gone to the Jannah, standing before one of those Huri about whom they had heard so much.

Then, when the young woman, taking notice of the newcomers, smiled kindly towards them, Osman completely lost his mind and, ripping off just his boots and pants, and threw himself into the spring running towards her.

He would have wanted to touch her, to take her at once, but the thought of having something not quite human before him reined him in, leaving him immobile and star-struck even when the girl rose to her feet right there, showing off in its entirety her perfect body.

She came closer, almost touching his nose with hers, and then she let loose a small, almost amused laugh when both of them noticed the bulge that was getting bigger in Osman's underpants.

Heaven or not, the flesh remained flesh, and at least Osman knew he was quite assuredly not dead, despite his embarrassment.

They looked into each other's eyes for long, with Mehmed up there reduced to a powerless spectator.

Osman dithered, to the point of shivering like a baby when the girl came up to him, and freezing even when she languidly let her hand slip behind his neck, as if wishing to pull him to her. She smiled at him, a smile quickly returned, and the young soldier was so drunk upon such beauty that he lost himself completely in those unusually violet eyes, so irresistible, even when those eyes glazed with a homicidal light.

The only thing that Osman felt was something thin and hard piercing his neck, perhaps a large needle or a brooch ably hidden, because the strike was so precise that it neatly cut his spinal nerve.

Everything happened so quickly that Mehmed didn't even have the time to get it. Also because, even before his friend had slipped in the water to await his doom, unable to move and powerless, a shadow appeared behind him, and with no time to react the youngster found a thin steel wire going around his neck.

He tried to squirm with everything he had, but whoever had surprised him was undoubtedly stronger than him; the aggressor kept pulling with all of his strength even after Mehmed had stopped moving, letting go only when he was more than sure that he was dead.

"Miss Oldoini, are you alright?" asked Tolstoj, turning towards the spring, and then immediately turning on his heels, his face ablaze, and not because of the temperature.

"Men. You'll never change." she answered, not interested in the least to cover the feminine 'gifts' Nature had given her for her fellow adventurer's sake. "Muslim, orthodox, catholic, all the same. All of you reason only with your dick."

The girl then grabbed the hair of her victim, drawing his head out of the water and ascertaining his death.

"This idiot could have dropped the jacket as well. Now we'll have to wash it. As if we weren't running on a schedule."

So, while Virginia dried off and got dressed, Tolstoj washed Osman's encrusted clothes in a basin of clean water, managing with no small effort to clean them.

"In any case." he commented, hanging the clothes over the fumes to dry them. "I have to admit that you have some... talent for this kind of things, Miss Oldoini."

"Since I was little, my cousin Camillo kept saying that I could use my looks as a weapon." she replied, almost proudly. "I'm just acting on what he taught me."

"The Count of Cavour? You have quite the important relatives. Who knows, one day perhaps you may hook up... I mean, win over some high-level people. Maybe a prince, or perhaps even an emperor."

"We'll see." stated Virginia with a wink. "Now let's get a move on."

* * *

A few hours later, the Ottoman sentries guarding one of the access gates to the town of Yevpatoria saw a small cart with two comrades emerge from the dark.

"_Bekle!_" said the one in command.

The two immediately came to a stop, wholly surrendering themselves to the inspection; the soldier with the reins was tall and rather stout, with a massive moustache and a square chin; his companion, on the other hand, had much fairer traits, almost effeminate ones, and kept his eyes down, as if fearing that his excessive beauty could turn into a reason for mockery.

The sergeant commanding the guard post walked around the cart, glaring at the large burlap sack that made up its cargo.

"_Bu ne?_" he asked.

"_General için bir hediye._" replied the moustached soldier. "_Onu terk edilmiş bir Rus kampından aldık._"

With that, the sergeant opened the sack, revealing a multitude of smaller ones. Just opening one was enough to let an unmistakable smell pervade the area, prompting a few guards to show delighted smiles.

"_Onu depoya getir._" said the sergeant, quietly pocketing the small sack he had been holding. "_Bırak geçsinler!_"

"_Teşekkürler çavuş._"

The guard then lifted the bar, and the cart could proceed.

But, contrary to the instructions received, it did not go towards the stores, rather waiting to disappear from the sight of the guard post to suddenly turn right, stopping in a deserted square.

"This collar is stifling me." protested Virginia, unlatching the first button. "Were did you learn Turkish?"

"I... I have a lot of free time." Tolstoj replied, almost embarassed, taking on the sack from the cart. "C'mon, it's not far from here."

Cautiously, but trying not to cast suspicion on themselves by trying too hard,the two started off on the town's streets, on which only Ottoman soldiers could be seen; the governor had prudently decided to evacuate the city even before the enemy's arrival, and although that had meant surrendering it without a fight it had surely saved a lot of lives.

"Are you sure it's this way?"

"More than sure." replied Lev, steadily plodding on despite the huge and very heavy load he was carrying. "I was trained for a while there."

In a short while, the two reached a hut made of dried bricks near the main barracks, with no windows and covered by a few wooden planks; the Ottomans felt so safe that, except for a couple patrols around the area, nobody was guarding the door, therefore Virginia and Tolstoj had to just wait for the all clear to get inside with no issue.

There, in the dark, there was a huge mound of small, dark casks, piled up all together in a mess. There were at least a hundred of them-

Virginia opened one, revealing the content.

"There it is. Black powder."

Tolstoj at that was finally able to give a rest to his poor shoulders by dropping his cargo, and while Virginia opened the casks one by one, he began to pour inside them the content of the small sacks, careful to make as little noise as possible, and keeping an eye towards the door at all times.

"Seriously now, Miss Oldoini. Do you get this strategy at all?"

"In all honesty? No. But I learned to shut down my brain when that freaky little girl is involved."

* * *

That morning, the Russian army still standing by at Balaklava had at last received the order to move out to the north, and everything suggested that, in a short while, things would change a lot.

Other than the sappers and the artillery units, whose contribution had been strangely considered not necessary in the battle plan that was being prepared, in the small village, by thhen liberated from the Anglo-French forces, a small detachment of guards had remained to keep a look on the prisoners.

If the French, Canrobert first of all, had had a favourable treatment, with the General hosted in the captain's room of one of the captured British ships in the village's small harbor, and his men allowed to drink and congratulate themselves on still being alive down in the holds, prisoners but well fed, the British, relatively speaking, were faring much worse.

Because on that the General's line of thinking was, to say the least, unusual; if on one hand she appreciated bravery and determination in discharging one's own duty, on the other hand the foolish decision to keep fighting despite the apparent defeat, with the concrete risk of causing further loss of life just out of a desire to drag down as many enemies with them as possible, was a reprehensible behavior, if not outright a punishable one.

Because of that, the few survivors of the 93rd had been all locked up in a hut, divested of part of their uniforms and left with dirty blankets to keep warm in the cold Crimean nights.

All considered, Cardigan had almost come out on top of his men; at least he had a small room all to himself, and he had been allowed to keep his uniform; if it was indeed an award to be forced to wear trousers with a yellow stain in the crotch area.

His days were filled with nervous walks here and there, or forlornly sitting down with his back on the cold walls, like a condemned man waiting to be led to the gallows.

Evidently it was too much of a weight to tolerate, for a man like him.

That night, the two guards that kept an eye on the huts had taken a longer dinner than usual, therefore on their first round they immediately noticed something was off, passing by the Colonel's hut; usually they could hear Cardigan mumbling a few prayers, and therefore the silence immediately unnerved them.

One of the two put his face between the bars at the door, and what he could glimpse in the dark was an inert corpse dangling from the roof.

"Oh, shit! Open!"

Other than the dishonor of having such a high-ranking officers taking his own life under custody, the two were well aware of what they would face if the General had discovered that the prisoner had had all the time to kill himself because they hadn't done their duty.

Barging in, they found the Colonel with his face turned towards the door, hanging from the ripped off sleeves of his jacket tied to the lone shaft in the roof not rotten enough to hold his weight.

Their first instinct was to run to take him down in the hope of not being too late, and in their hurry they failed to notice that Cardigan's hands were unusually tied behind his back.

Tied... or so it seemed.

Despite not being a seaman, the Colonel knew how to make a knot sufficiently complex to cause the maximum tension in the rope without causing him to choke, with the proviso of having a sort of "lever" that allowed the noose to be loose enough.

Grabbing one of the soldiers with his legs to have a support, Cardigan snapped his neck with a swift blow, removing the noose from his neck immediately after.

The other guard, taken completely by surprise, tried to point his gun, but the Colonel by then had already jumped him, choking him with the rope he still had between his wrists.

Everything happened in the span of a few seconds, and Cardigan took a few more to be sure that nobody had heard anything. Then, taking hold of a pistol, ammunition and powder, he hurriedly went out, disappearing in the dark.

* * *

The situation at Sevastopol was unusually quiet, on the dawn of November the Fifth.

During the night, an Arctic disturbance had reached the hills around the city, dropping the first snowflakes and bringing a light but very cold wind, that, like the breath of a giant, came down on the bay and reached the open sea.

Hidden by the clouds that promised a renewed storm in a short while, the sun was struggling to show himself in the sky, proclaiming with its coming another day of fighting, the last in innumerable ones.

In the forts and in the trenches, as well as on the ships in the fleet, the Allies were preparing for the changing of the guard (or the watch), other than consuming a breakfast prepared out of what little the sutlers had managed to save from the frost, already threatening to compromise the more delicate foodstuffs.

But while the British and the French were calming down their guts with hardtack and lukewarm coffee, in the city the Russians were more active than ever.

Aboard the fleet flagship, the 120-gun _Velikii Kniaz' Konstantin_, Katyusha watched as around her the seamen prepared to set sail, among the utmost silence and in the absence of whistles, calls and noise that made the scene almost disquieting.

Within the city and in the forts the preparations were marching on as well; so, while at Malakoff and in the other fortifications the gunners were loading the mortars with large clay spheres fitted with fuzes, near the canal the infantrymen, together with some local civilians, were hurriedly preparing a long line of open casks, out of which some dark and thick steam was coming.

Lastly, near the obstruction, a few small boats, each carrying two or three soldiers, were laying in wait, well hidden behind the sunken wrecks, each provided with a long, hollow tubes held by one of the crew that dipped under the chilly water, right by the sunken ships.

The ship-of-the-line that had showed up in the middle of the roadsted a few nights' ago was still there, sunk almost perfectly upright, and on her deck as well work was being done, with a few soldiers hard at work scattering casks and piles of explosives all over the wreck.

The gunner that watched over the work checked one last time, verifying that each fuze had been correctly connected to a single primer.

At that point, and at his command, a single whistle echoed in the general silence, reaching an ear on a small boat, and from there eventually going from mouth to mouth until it reached Katyusha's ear, who checked her watch.

It was fifty-eight minutes and thirty-six seconds after five.

At her nod, the same whistle made the return journey to the gunner aboard the _Khrabryi_, who himself checked his watch.

And waited.

He waited until the hand pointed at fifty-nine minutes on the dot; then, the fuzes lit, he ran for the awaiting boat, who made a good show of getting the hell out of there.

Again, the whistle made his way to Katyusha, who had never taken her eyes from the watch.

The seconds came one after the other.

One after another.

Then, it was six o'clock.

"Now!"


	23. Chapter 23

A deafening boom, so strong that it caused waves in an otherwise calm sea, almost made both Admiral Dundas and Lord Raglan fall from their chairs, in the cabin of HMS Britannia where they were having breakfast.

"By Jove, what is going on?" protested the Admiral, glaring at his uniform stained orange from the tea he was drinking.

He and the general immediately ran up on the deck, and what they saw was a scene worthy of a surreal nightmare.

The large man-of-war in the middle of the barrier had been literally ripped apart by an impressing series of detonations.

But the most incredible thing was that, out of nowhere, as if because of a magical spell, from the water all around a dense white curtain had begun to rise, so dense that in a matter of seconds it became impossible to see through it.

And yet, that was just the beginning.

Because if from the sea the view was limited, from the hill to the south the commander of the British batteries, General John Burgoyne, could get a clear idea of what was really going on.

With a coordination that almost defied belief, from the piers, from the ships, even from the roofs of the houses that stood near the water, large casks filled with more two hundred and fifty tons of dry ice, scavenged from each cold room of the city, had been thrown overboard.

The same dry ice kept in the hold of the _Khrabryi_, properly sealed to avoid infiltrations, but that had been all let out at the moment of the detonation.

The result was that, in a short while, Sevastopol as a whole was cloaked by a ghastly fog, thick and compact, that, favored by the humidity carried by the wind, took the shape of an enormous cloud.

"God Almighty." murmured Dundas.

Before that kind of spectacle, Raglan himself shivered, because he knew that on the face of the Earth only one person was able to think of something so out of the box.

"It's her!" he yelled. "It's her doing!"

If the cloud completely denied sight from the sea, from the hills instead it was still possible to overlook with some clarity what was happening within the city; and it was because of that that Burgoyne and his men were able to immediately realize that such a God-forsaken tactic had the lone objective to hide the Russian fleet sortieing from the harbour.

They were likely not expecting that the fog, thick as it was, wouldn't be enough to preserve visibility on the bay from the artillery posts there. If nothing else, there was someone able to stop them.

"Quick!" the General thundered. "Load them guns! Prepare to fire!"

Luckily in the night the loads of powder and ammo from Evpatoria had come, therefore the British could have rained fire and destruction on the Russians without a single bother; it was like a shooting gallery.

All the gunners immediately got to work, and in a record-breaking time all the guns were loaded and aimed.

"Ready, sir!"

"Fire! Fire at will!"

The fuzes were lit... and at the same time they went out.

Not a single shot was fired.

For a moment, silence weighing like a boulder fell upon everyone up there.

"What in the devil is going on?" asked the General.

"The powder's not taking, sir!"

"What do you mean, it's not taking?"

Numerous attempts were made, while the Russian ships were getting away without punishment, but the most that could be gotten out of the cannons was some coughing snap, not even enough to let the shell out of the muzzle.

As a last, desperate resort they tried to break into new casks, fearing that the powder of some of them had been compromised by the last storm, but it had no effect.

Burgoyne was so beside himself that he himself ripped the match cord out of the gunner's hands to fire the piece himself, and it was only when he saw with his own eyes that nothing was happening that he fully realized the situation, to which he could find no logical explanation.

At last, a thought.

With wide eyes, he ran over to the canopy under which the casks were piled up, literally smashing one open with a mighty kick and scattering its contents all around; at first glance, everything was in order, but the General had only to grab a handful and bring it closer to his face to notice, among all the other smells, another one, pretty unmistakable.

"Tea...?"

Shocked, he opened many others, and each time, with care, that smell that in other circumstances would have been found extremely pleasant showed up, revealing the great deception.

By then, he was wild with rage.

"Son of a bitch!" he roared, throwing one of the casks down the walls.

* * *

While befuddlement reigned supreme upon them, and not understanding why no gunfire was coming from the hill to signal a changed situation within the harbour, the Allied ships that made up the blockading fleet found themselves in the peculiar situation of not knowing what to do.

Several of them had still the sails furled, or the engines shut down and cold, or both, or even with the anchors dropped, thus unable to decide whether to keep the formation or try in some way to get close to the fog bank to begin the daily bombardment of the forst.

On the _Britannia_'s quarterdeck, Admiral Dundas and Lord Raglan were equally mystified, and if Raglan from his part exhorted to be ready, the Admiral himself could not understand what could be cooking up with that maneuver.

Then, all of a sudden, some shapes were spotted within the fog, at the extreme left of the mouth of the canal, right under the Quarantine Bastion. A moment of worry followed, but it became shock when the shapes turned into a dozen or so of small vessels, mostly steamers, small ones and with no armament visible.

One after another they came out of the bank, in a single line, immediately turning to port right after clearing the roadstead and showing their sides to the Allied fleet, compared to which they looked like many ants eager to challenge a pride of lions.

"What in blazes are they playing at?" growled the Admiral. "Do they hope to hit us at that range?"

But actually, the newcomers showed no sign of wishing to open fire.

Instead, without even slowing down, they showed off with a graceful maneuver that made them draw an almost perfect semicircle, after which they made for the canal once more, without breaking their rigid formation not even once.

That strange maneuver left speechless even Admiral Hamelin, who, aboard the ship of the line _Ville de Paris_, 118 guns, six ships forwards of the _Britannia, _was in command of the French squadron.

However, he was the first to notice, in a few minutes' time, the appearance of strange ripples in the calm waters of the bay, followed by strange lights and flares.

"What in the world are those, now?" he said when, grabbing a spyglass, he could glimpse a bunch of long wooden logs that, pushed by a bunch of fireworks tied on their back section, were making their way towards them at a decent speed.

As those things, three or four at most, were mainly aimed at the right flank of the formation, Dundas and Raglan took just a bit more to notice them, but again, the more favourable angle of observation allowed them to better glimpse their shape.

They were, basically, a wooden log, roughly six feet long and one foot wide; going more or less at fifteen knots, straight as a die, thanks to the propulsive force of six fireworks tied together by leather bounds, and connected with the central body thanks to a rod a foot long that kept it above water; some kind of bird-like wings prevented them from sinking, and to that likely contributed a kind of fin positioned on the fore, that could be glimpsed from time to time when the object jumped over a wave. On the fore there was also an arrow-shaped bow, that together with the oblique shape of the 'wings' allowed them to pierce through the water easily.

When Hamelin understood himself, that thing was a few dozen yards' away.

"_Mon Dieu..._"

The _Ville de Paris_ was clearly tagged by one of those logs, more or less at the height of the quarterdeck, and less than a second afterwards a loud explosion echoed.

Hamelin felt the whole ship shake under his feet and list a bit, as if an enormous whale had crashed into it, and just then the alarm bell rang from below deck.

"Hole in the hull!" the carpenter bellowed. "We're taking on water! The hold is flooding!"

It wasn't that serious, actually, not with the state-of-the-art pumps the ship was fitted with.

However, the psychological effect was devastating, especially since other fared much worse; because if the _Ville de Paris_ came out with just a scratch, two of the three logs managed to pass through the line of capital ships and reach the supply schooner _Argenteuil_.

One of the two hit the small ship on the bow, detonating without doing much, but the other struck amidships; the explosion punched through to the powder room, and with that the vessel literally blew up, snapping in two and sinking in a matter of minutes.

"Holy Christ!" shrieked Dundas, and in the eyes of each seaman that had assisted to that sheer terror appeared when they realized that the sea was full of those infernal things, that, launched one after the other from the Russian boats, were coming straight for them, like sharks attracted by prey. "Evasive maneuvers, Goddammit! Evasive maneuvers!"

All forty and some ships of the fleet set sail and fired up their engines at the same time, and, every semblance of coordinated maneuver gone to hell, worried only about getting out of those things' trajectory.

"What are you waiting for!" Raglan yelled. "Fire! Open fire! Take out those hellish things!"

The gunners obeyed, soon obeyed by those of the nearby ships, but the results were pretty much disappointing; simply put, there was no way to properly aim for something so small and quick, and in the end the shots that hit were just a minority. But the worst thing was that, since everybody was thinking for himself, the ships in the blockade pretty much sailed all over themselves, going so far as as accidentally ramming into each other while trying to get to safety.

The maneuver left even the defenders of the Russian forts speechless, since nobody would have ever expected to see the famed Royal Navy so discombobulated. Who wasn't that surprised were the seamen and the gunners aboard the Russian steamers, who, despite having never seen them before, had imagined what could be the potential of those torpedoes.

One of the was named Ivan, able seaman aboard the _Odessa_; with his companions, he had worked all night long to build the gunwales on the ship's sides on which he was standing now, fitted with ports through which the torpedoes could be brought.

As he prepared to deploy another, getting it into the water and holding tightly onto it with both hands, for a moment he remembered the speech done by the General the night before, in the last briefing.

* * *

Placed upon a table in one of the harbour's huts, in the candlelight, the torpedo looked much bigger than it actually war.

Katyusha had called the best gunners of the various ships chosen for the mission, and it was an euphemism to call them shocked and confused because of what was before them.

In the days before they had been informed about them and, if that could be said, trained in their use, but the thought of having to handle those things in an engagement without even testing them rightly deprived them of calm.

And yet, the General looked like the poster child of assurance, showing nothing but complete faith in that object created by her mind.

"I'll run the risk of sounding repetitive, so I'll tell you once more." she said, pacing around the table. "Be very careful when you handle them. To keep down the weight, the thickness of the wood is less than a third of an inch, both for the casing and for the wings. The fore part of the tube has been filled with powder and fitted with a pressure device, that will cause the detonation less than two seconds after impact. We have added some chemicals to the powder, which in theory will increase its power, but at the same time it makes it less stable. So, be very careful when the time comes."

"General." said then Sebrikov, the commander of the _Odessa_. "Forgive me, if I dare to ask you this, but... are you really sure it will work?"

"Nothing is ever certain in war, there are only occasions to grab whenever possible. Even if the fog caused by the dry ice will cover us while we get out, the Allies would cut us to pieces as soon as we get out of the harbour, as long as they remain in formation. We have to break it. Only then we'll have gained the time we need."

Katyusha had to climb upon a chair to properly illustrate the inner mechanisms of the weapon, but nobody would ever have thought to comment about or laugh at it.

"The fireworks that work as a propeller won't last long. Best case scenario, they'll reach the six hundred yard mark before they'll stop. And even though we've emptied them of the explosives, there is a chance they might go off. Therefore, first get them into the water, then pull this small cord. That will activate an internal fuze that will set off the compound, so you won't have to light it by hand.

Remember, you'll have just a few seconds. When they'll understand what is happening, the Allies will surely open fire, and despite the range there is the chance that some of their hits might reach you. And I don't have to tell you what would happen, should you get hit with all this stuff onboard, do I?"

The idea gave everyone chills and cold sweat; it was already plenty dangerous to sail with a lighted boiler and a few hundredweights' worth of coal, but that was even worse.

"The ships will have to maneuver in such a way to leave them as little exposed to the enemy fire as possible. Don't waste time and try to aim , because the wind and the currents will factor in as well. Drop as many torpedoes as you can and then get back here as quickly as possible. If everything goes according to plan, this will leave the enemy thoroughly confused.

Is everything clear?"

"Yes, sir." everyone duly answered.

* * *

And what Katyusha had predicted, was coming about.

Somebody at first had secretly doubted of the effectiveness of a weapon that was going at a tenth of the speed of a cannonball.

But in that slowness lied its strength, even not counting, as it had been seen, the ability to sink a small ship; because the enemy had plenty of time to sight it, and, with little that could be done to stop it, his only thought was to avoid it at any cost, resulting in what could be seen-

The Allied fleet in a few minutes lost all cohesion, other than losing two other minor ships, while four more suffered low-to-medium damage in their hulls, ending up with five feet of water in the hold, on the luckiest one.

The HMS _Trafalgar_, sister ship of the _Britannia_, ended up in huge trouble right as her crew had believed they had evaded it, when one of the torpedoes went and crashed against the rudder, taking it out.

"The rudder's shot, Sir!" the helmsman told the ship's captain, and Vice-Admiral Lyons, whose flag flew on her.

"We'll steer her by sails! Open up!"

Theoretically it was possible to steer a ship like that, as long as there were enough wind.

With lots of effort, the _Trafalgar_ tried to get out of the hotspot, but the situation took a turn for the dramatic when, with terror dancing in his eyes, Lyons saw HMS _Agamemnon_ that, burning like a torch and drifting, was coming at them.

"Full sails, in God's name! We have to get out!"

"Too late, Sir!" said his flag-captain, who, thanks to being twenty years his junior, managed to jump overboard, together with the few others that showed the same quick reflexes.

The _Agamemnon_ rammed the _Trafalgar_ amidships, and almost immediately the two men-of-war were obliterated by a huge explosion that was accompanied by a shockwave.

The Allied fleet was completely dispersed, prey to total chaos, and in that moment, almost ignored by their very enemies, the return of the steamers in the fog coincided with the appearance of the Russian ships, that were able to sortie undisturbed.

Flying Admiral Nachimov's flag, but with Katyusha at his side in command, the K_onstantin_ was in the middle.

The Prince himself had been left ashore, leading the ground defenses to prevent an eventual, desperate enemy assault against the city.

The Russian fleet was able to form up without being molested, turning north for a bit; that had been possible also thanks to the charges placed by the divers on the sunken hulks, whose demolition had allowed their sisters to slip out.

As the line of battle sailed on towards the enemy, Katyusha waited, and waited some more, keeping an admirable restraint even when rhe enemies, recognizing the danger and having recovered a little, had opened fire. Till the last possible moment.

"Fire!"

The first concentrated broadside was nothing less than devastating. Several Allied ships were out of formation and not showing their side to the opponents, their stern galleries vulnerable and their sails spread out.

Both the _Britannia_ and the _Ville de Paris_ were among the lucky ships, as other, much less lucky ones unwillingly shielded them, but both Dundas and Hamelin had to look as two of their ships were taken out of the fight, with several others suffering severe damage; one of them, the French _Hasardeux_, didn't think twice about it and struck, giving up.

"Signal everyone, form up now! Now!"

Even though the Allies were desperately trying to regain cohesion and some semblance of order, two more broadside were fired, augmented by gunfire coming from the two forts at the mouth of the Canal and the Quarantine Fort; and, unfortunately, the latter was not just normal gunfire.

With the exception of the Quarantine Fort, by then cut off from the other defenses by the French trenchworks, the other two forts had received a huge quantity of enormous shells made in a record-breaking time, a bit slapdash, perhaps, but still effective.

They were more or less similar to those prepared on Katyusha's orders at Balaklava, with the lone difference that, other than with vodka and other flammable liquids, these ones were fitted with a primer that made the grenade detonate a few seconds after being fired.

The result was that on the Allied fleet literally rained fire, with sails going up in flames and powder rooms threatening to go up and blow up the ships, making even more difficult to keep an eye on the enemy vessels and on what was happening on the shore.

But this was, in the end, still the Royal Navy.

Dundas had to cry himself raw, and the signalmen spend quite a bit of effort hauling and lowering flags, but in the end, perhaps even against the hopes of Katyusha herself, her enemies were once more in a line-of-battle, formed up against the Russian one.

"Don't waste ammo!" ordered Katyusha. "Tack in unison, reverse course!"

It was by far a tall order, and beside her Nachimov blanched; but after a second, he confirmed it with a firm voice.

It was clear that the enemy, once more safe in formation, aimed to turn this into the most classic of fleet engagements, hauling up for a close engagement where both their superior discipline, better gunners and numerical superiority (despite the losses suffered so far, the Allied capital ships still outnumbered the Russian ones five to one) could be brought to bear.

Katyusha's order partly prevented that, as long as it could be executed; but the complex maneuver, with the intercession of lots of Orthodox saints whose name were pronounced in vain, was completed in the end, despite more than a few ships bumping into each other or switching position. Now the Russian line of battle was sailing in the opposite direction, denying the opponents the chance to focus on a single opponent.

But, unfortunately for her, Dundas was no fool.

"Now!" he ordered, just as the van was coming up to the Russian's rear.

With staggering precision, despite the damage, the Allied line turned about in unison with staggering precision, as if it were done in a fleet review, with nary a trouble, thus bringing about the very situation that the Russians feared.

"Dammit!"

Also, as they had tacked into the wind, the speed of the two lines was rather low, giving the Allied gunners plenty of time to aim.

"Fire!"

As the first Russian broadside had been, the Allied one was crushing as well, with several Imperial ships, serving as target for more than one opponent, being literally riddled with shells; the one coming off the worst was the _Varna_, third in line, absorbing so many hits that, after losing the mizzenmast, got her very bow smashed, veering off the line abruptly and barely missed by the following ship.

A wooden splinter four inches long just missed Katyusha, and ended up lodged in Admiral Nachimov's arm.

"Admiral!" said Katyusha as he slumped on the deck.

"It's nothing! It's nothing!"

Dundas, at the sight of the Russian fleet being slowly cut to pieces, felt the taste of an incoming victory, a bit prematurely perhaps; because Katyusha had not ran out of aces in her sleeve.

"The torpedoes! Deploy them now or we're all dead!"

Lots of commanders had been less than happy to carry in their holds those bombs waiting to get off, but they ended up being providential at last; because this time, at a substantially greater range, seeing them deployed send shivers on the back of each and every Allied captain.

"Evasive maneuvers, break off the engagement." the Admirals quickly ordered.

There were a few bumps along the way and a few hits, with the escort ship HMS _Leicester_ taking one amidships and sporting a six feet gash in the hull, but, perhaps due to the hurried deployment, very few hits were recorded. However, this expedient and the evasive maneuver of the enemy allowed the Russians to break off the engagement and gain a respite.

As the two lines of battle reformed, squaring off near the southern and northern shoals, some counts could be made; in the end, the Allied losses and damages were higher, but the Russian fleet hadn't come off unscathed, with more than a few ships damaged or weighed down by holes below the waterline.

Then, as the two formations were trying to come up with what to do next, something happened that caught everybody by surprise.

In the last few minutes, from the Quarantine Fort no more gunfire had been heard, replaced by sounds of battle and rifles being shot.

Out of the blue, from within some cheering was heard, and in a few moments, under the astonished eyes of both lines, the Imperial flag came down and was struck, quickly replaced by the French tricolor.

"The fort!" someone shouted in the general silence and shock. "The Quarantine Fort fell!"


	24. Chapter 24

24

The sight of the Quarantine Fort fallen into enemy hands just like that had the immediate effect of paralyzing the Russian army; even Katyusha, whose ability to keep her cool even in the most dreadful situations was becoming the stuff of legend, clearly showed her disappointment, grinding her teeth and punching the rail.

Then, disbelief turned to terror as the fort's guns roared all together, although thankfully most shots missed; the French likely weren't accostumed to handling such antiques, guns some fifty years old, but it wouldn't last.

However, the small _Chelyabinsk_, already in bad shape because of the previous engagement, came up at the wrong place in the wrong time; it was difficult to say how many shots had hit, but everyone saw it go up in flames like an enormous firework, before thousands of astonished Russians.

"General, we have to retreat!" yelled Nachimov.

Too bad that Katyusha was of another mind altogether.

"Hold the formation! The most damaged ships tack and redeploy behind the others!"

"Sir, it's madness! If even just one of the fort protecting the canal falls, we'll be cut off from the city! We have to get back in till we can, or we'll be sitting ducks!"

Katyusha reacted by simply drawing her pistol, shooting twice in the air and shutting everyone up at once.

"I said, hold formation! And I won't repeat it!"

Before such an eloquent intimation, the officers had no other choice, and Dundas almost couldn't believe his eyes when he saw, with the fort still bellowing against them, the Russian ships move away from the canal, bearing west.

"Have they lost their minds?" he said under his spyglass. "Their main fort has fallen and they don't withdraw?"

But if Raglan considered such a behavior worthy of being committed, Raglan thought otherwise.

"Whatever they are doing, it's time to end this. Signal the fleet, close rang engagement. We'll deal with those poor excuses of seamen in one blow!"

"No, wait! Belay that order!"

Hearing such a thing on a ship of Her Majesty, everyone gaped at Raglan, whose eyes were full of apprehension.

"We have the upper hand right now. If we go and meet them, we'll be vulnerable. We should remain here within the fort's range and stay on the defensive."

"General..." began Dundas, partly annoyed (who dared countermand an order on his ship?), partly wavering.

"She's got something on her mind! It's not much since I first knew of her, but I do know that the normal tactics won't work against her! The best thing is to hold the position and fight at a distance!"

"But by doing so they might still withdraw. It's a huge chance to wipe out the enemy fleet."

"I already underestimated that witch once, when I believed I had her against the ropes!" screamed an enraged Raglan. "And I'm still counting the corpses! And if we have to swallow our pride to win and act like chickens, so be it! Anything's better than falling into one of the traps laid by that demon who looks like a small girl!"

Dundas stalled, unable to recognize in that scared and timid man his longtime friend, and, also out of annoyance at being questioned on the quarterdeck of his flagship, considered ignoring him; after all, the Somerset Command still didn't give him any power over the Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet.

But then, he remembered the nightmares and the sleepless nights that the General had had since his return from Balaklava, and the thought of what could have traumatized him in such a way, a person who wouldn't have hesitated to cut off his arm at once for the Crown, bade him change his mind, and take a decision that he himself could hardly believe.

"Belay that order." he almost whispered. "Signal the fleet. Redeploy off the fort, and form a defensive line there, right off the reef. This way we won't be in range of the batteries near the canal."

"Aye aye, sir."

"And remind everyone, keep an eye on those shoals."

* * *

Nachimov and the other Russian commanders were all but waiting for the Allied fleet to make straight for them, to devour them like hungry sharks around a dying whale.

Instead, their jaws went to the deck as they saw the fleet move away, to redeploy in a thick line very close to the fort and the southern shore, near the fort's range, British and French ships alike.

"What in the world are the doing?" someone asked. "Why don't they attack?"

"I don't understand." said Nachimov. "With the fort supporting them, they could take us out once at a time with ease."

A suspicion ran among everybody; perhaps, the enemy wished to use the fort's position to strike at the forts protecting the canal, so to facilitate a ground attack. This way, they would have kept control over the harbor, but they would have trapped the Russian fleet outside, forcing it to choose between surrender or defeat.

"Admiral." said a seemingly completely recovered and cool Katyusha. "Signal the fleet, close range engagement."

"What?" shrieked Nachimov, any discipline left way behind them. "You want to engage them?"

"That's what I said. Straight for them, so to avoid as much damage as possible while we close, bearing south-south west. At the signal, we'll tack on our starboard side and we'll close in."

"All together?" somebody else let out. "Under the fort's fire all the time? We barely pulled it off before, but now would be a suicide!"

"General, we followed you till now, but this is the time to acknowledge the facts! We lost! I won't lead my ships and my man to be slaughtered in a senseless attack!"

The few that didn't dare to voice what they thought held their breath, waiting for the General to do to Nachimov what she had done to Prince Menshikov, or so it was said.

Instead, she turned towards them, leaving them speechless; there was no rage in her eyes, but mere determination, together with a desperate request for trust. Like a daughter begging her parents to trust her and let her free to live her life.

"Please." she said calmly, almost pleading. "Trust me. I know I'm asking much out of you. I promised you we would relieve Sevastopol. Then, I say, it's not over yet. We can still win; but you have to believe in me."

That said, Katyusha drew her pistol again; but, instead of aiming it, she offered it to Nachimov, who gaped at her.

"If you don't agree with me, then shoot me now. There will be no consequences for you. But I'll do what I think it's best. You'll have to kill me to stop me."

"G-General..."

The admiral and his officers exchanged glances, and then looked again at the Grand Duchess, blue as the sea all around them; for a single moment, somebody asked himself what Russia could have been, if the Almighty had made that small girl a boy instead, and heir to the throne.

"For the Motherland." she concluded, almost in a prayer, putting down the weapon.

"For the Motherland..." Nachimov eventually murmured back, and then he let out a cry for all the others, if not for the whole fleet, that was joined by countless others. "FOR THE MOTHERLAND!"

"Spread everything we've got! This will be the final blow!"

"Have they lost their minds once and for all?" Dundas wondered, as the Russian fleet, spreading all the sails it could, began to move, clearly showing that it wished to repeat the same maneuver it had executed before.

Raglan didn't await for him to decide.

"Prepare to fire!"

Finding themselves a few yards' away from the shoals, with reefs and shallow waters all around them, the Allied fleet had been forced to slow down, in some cases lowering almost everything.

It was hardly a problem, though, with the fort protecting them and the reef hiding them from the fire of the other Russian forts, but if another engagement was on the plate, such a static formation might have become less than optimal.

"Wait until they're close!" Dundas ordered.

Everyone awaited for the fort to start raining fire and decimate the opponents, or at the very least disrupt its formation and allowing for them to pick them off one by one.

But from high above, nothing came. The fort was silent.

"What are they doing?" Raglan growled. "We should signal those idiots to open fire."

Flags were hoisted, even rockets went up, but nothing changed.

Dundas and Raglan pointed their spyglasses respectively towards the fort and towards the enemy flagship, and both saw things that they wished never to; because Dundas saw that the gunners inside the fort were sensibly changing the elevation of the guns, while Raglan, after sweeping over all the other officers, saw Katyusha's face twist into a smirk worthy of the Devil himself.

"Oh, God, no..."

The guns fired.

And not just them.

Mortars, grenades and even rifles blasted away. Everything within the fort was fired... against the Allied fleet.

At that range, several British and French ships were almost immediately disabled, peppered with shots without even being able to take notice of what was going on, and Dundas himself saw a bullet rip his cap off his head.

"It was a trick!" he roared, as the French flag over the fort went down, replaced once more by the Imperial one. "Let's get away from here!"

Too late.

The Allied ships were almost stopped, and in the time that it took to spread some decent sails or open up the engines once more, five of them had already gone to Davy Jones' locker, with most of their crews.

And thus the scene that had played before unfolded once more, with the men-of-war that managed only to get into each other's way, and some even coming up and grounding themselves on the shoals.

When Dundas had managed to regain a bit of control over the situation, the Russian fleet was right on top of them.

"Fire!"

"Goddamn!"

Between gunfire, grenades, and those infernal torpedoes, ten were the ships disabled by that single broadside; and when the rest of the fleet had managed to disentangle itself and get out of that crossfire, the numerical difference between the fleets had all but disappeared.

"And now the playing field has been evened out, you bastards!" yelled Katyusha, climbing onto the rail and pointing a finger at the British flagship.

* * *

The trick had been supremely effective in dealing yet another blow to the beleaguered opponents.

Unfortunately, as Katyusha had predicted as soon as she had opted to use it, it aroused a series of outraged gasps among the admiral and his men.

She turned to look at Nachimov's face, pale out of surprise and fury.

At first unable to even speak, eventually he was able to point at the fort.

"That fort... pretended to surrender."

"Indeed it has." was her cool reply.

With a glare that had at least a part of Katyusha fear that he would regret his choice to refuse the pistol proffered him before, the admiral ground out: "That is perfidy. It's explicitly forbidden by any nation that considers itself civilized!"

"Should they?"

The General's almost morose answer almost made Nachimov explode, but he forced himself to keep his calm, even as he stepped up to her.

"General, using strange tactics is one thing, but doing something of this sort... means that now everything is pointless. Any victory we can get today, won't matter one thing as soon as people know how we obtained it."

"Pointless?" was Katyusha's rebuke, sharp as a lance. "Reputations may be soiled, honor may be sullied, but tell me, admiral, is this..." And she made a wide gesture, as she pointed to the burning hulk that was once the HMS _Queen_, proud first-rate of the Royal Navy. "Really pointless?"

"A honorable defeat may be accepted by our enemies, and by their public opinion. A dishonorable one will only strengthen their resolve, and add to our enemies' ranks." argued Nachimov, visibly struggling to keep his cool.

Katyusha shrugged. "Some might be enraged by this. But others don't think like that; others care only about their gold and their markets, and their voices are powerful. If a defeat, perfidious as it may be, convinces them to lobby for the war's end eventually, it matters not."

"General, I cannot be an accomplice of this! I am a soldier in His Majesty's service, not some kind of thug willing to do anything!"

At the admiral's outburst, Katyusha finally lost her cool a bit, as she stepped down and looked up at his purple face, a sight that would have been comical in another situation.

"I'll take upon myself all the responsibility and the blame..."

"Rubbish!" spat Nachimov, his left hand squeezing his sword's hilt. "Even with no official consequences, you have still destroyed the reputation and careers of every high-ranking officer around here. Do you realize that?!"

Katyusha opened her mouth to reply, but nothing happened. The brief silence on the quarterdeck of the K_onstantin_ was pierced by a thunderous boom, as the _Jena_ (a French two-rate) blew up all of a sudden.

Both of them stared at the doomed ship for a few moments, then the Admiral's gaze flickered over the deck, where the crew had let out a mighty yell at the sight of yet another enemy ship going into the abyss.

"I want you to ask you something, Admiral." Katyusha said, her voice thick. "You said you are a soldier in the service of my father the Tsar. Then tell me, are you ready to do anything for him and for our country?"

Nachimov stared at her, taken aback by such an insulting question.

"Are you also willing," she continued, in the same tone. "to sacrifice career and reputation for the sake of the Motherland?"

The admiral paled once more, but it was a different pallor now. The other officers glanced at each other, understanding dawning into their eyes.

Now they were getting what was being asked for them.

A lifetime in a strictly organized society, and a long career into an organization where the code of honour was everything, spurred them all to protest, to object, to refuse.

But none of them was able to do it.

Because they had recognized, in the voice that had made such a request, the wholehearted willingness to sacrifice everything for a greater good, even what their society deemed untouchable.

They all looked at Nachimov.

The struggle within him lasted for long seconds, and nobody said anything.

Once more, he looked down, at his men, who didn't care for honor, for perfidy or for tricks; whose cheer had saluted the end of an enemy who would have doomed them in a straight-up, honorable fight.

Then he let out a breath and sagged.

Lifting his head to look at the battle-damaged ensign flying behind him, he smirked.

"If this is to be our last battle," he stated, turning towards the General, "then let it be the greatest victory our forces can obtain."

Katyusha's smile towards him was the epitome of gratitude.

* * *

The chronometer was a masterpiece, no questions asked.

According to how it was used, it could be much more than an instruments to get the position while at sea or keep the time.

For example, by using two of them once could coordinate attacks on different places, even very distant ones.

Although they could hear the noises of the battle, except for the batteries on the hill the ground forces still besieging Sevastopol had no idea of how the engagement between the fleets was going, because of the fog and the terrain.

They were so distracted, that almost nobody thought of looking in the opposite direction.

At eight o'clock in the morning, two hours on the spot from the beginning of the battle, the Russian forces, or rather what was left of them after Balaklava, appeared from behind the hills, to the enormous cheer of their companions within the forts.

There was no artillery nor supporting units, and not even pack trains; by the General's orders, anything that could slow down the forced match had been sacrificed, and that, together with the simultaneous, merciless sweep of any guard post or patrol between Balaklava and the city by raiding units, had ensured that the enemies hadn't been warned of the advance.

Seeing those eighteen thousand men pop up just like that, placing his troops between a rock and a hard place, Burgoyne felt a shiver in his bones.

"At your places!"

Luckily, the General had been foreseeing enough to deploy part of his guns away from the city, thus there was no need to go and move them now.

Unfortunately, Burgoyne had no idea of what the Russians had in store for him and his men.

Even before that the mile-and-a-half battle line had charged against him, with Her Highness Olga herself leading the joint Cossack and Württemberg cavalry, from Malakoff and the other forts guns and mortars opened up against them.

In the latter's case, however, no usual grenades were falling, once more; because, as they detonated in flight, what fell upon the British and the French huddled in the trenches was not explosive or that damned burning substance, but a dark and stinking concoction, that in no time covered everything from head to toe.

"What in the blazes is this stuff?" was everybody's cry.

It took just a spark of imagination to get the answer, especially when somebody noticed, among that filth, of something slimy and dirty-white, that didn't look any good.

"It's shit! White shit!"

"Quickly, clean yourselves up!" the officers tried to order. "That stuff will get you tetanus or cholera!"

Unfortunately, that stuff had fallen everywhere; also on the casks of drinking water, that was by then contaminated and unusable.

Few things were those that a soldier, accustomed to live with the idea of dying at any moment, could truly fear; among them, however, was the fear not to die in a few moments, ran through or cut to pieces by a grenade, but to die slowly, in a filthy bed, drained of his liquids in a stinking mess.

Fear was the ultimate weapon; the one that, if handled correctly, could win a battle even before it was fought. In time, several civilizations and empires had disavowed it, condemning it as a barbarous and uncivilized form of warfare.

But Katyusha hadn't. For her, it was a tool like any other. The only one, perhaps, able to give hope even to a ragtag and improvised army like hers.

The confusion rose to alarming levels among the Allied troops, whose officers had to make superhuman efforts to keep control of their men; but by then, the relief army, as it had happened at Balaklava, was already being thrown against them like a human wave.

The outward defense lines were captured in a matter of minutes, also because it quickly became apparent that the 'contaminated' powder had been distributed all around the trenches, making lots of weapons unserviceable. Besides, the defenders of Malakoff and the other redoubts, gathering all their courage, at one stage decided to sortie and attack the enemy from behind, catching it in a deadly pincer, with no hope to escape.

The numbers were still on their favor; but between the fear, part of their weapons disabled and the feeling of having been abandoned by a fleet that, albeit unseen, perceived as struggling, the will to fight of the enemy was quickly eroded, with entire units that, here and there, began to surrender under the astonished eyes of Burgoyne, who couldn't do anything but look on from above as his army went to pieces.

* * *

If on the shore the situation was becoming worse and worse for the besiegers, on the sea instead a stalemate was quickly forming.

Even though it was wounded, struck and deceived, the British fleet was still the best of the world, and despite being caught in a crossfire, every time that a ship entered the range of another fort, once out of the pocket it had managed to reorganize itself, and, yardarm to yardarm, was engaging the Russians in a furious struggle.

The French were doing their part, holding the port side from any attempt to surround them, while also making things difficult for the ground fortifications with a continuous fire.

But it was precisely to break the back of this last, feared resistance that Katyusha had cooked up something else.

The Quarantine Fort was the only one fitted with tunnels that connected it with the center of the city, precisely because of its isolated and important position.

Through the abandoned mine and the sewers, Nonna, Tolstoj, Virginia and the other maids had managed to reach the fortress, taking with them, other than more men to shore up the defenses, a curious amount of wood pieces and canvas that, once reassembled, had taken the form of an enormous flying creature, twenty feet long and a wingspan of thirty, fitted with a triangular support below it.

It did look like one of the harebrained inventions of that Leonardo da Vinci of old, come out of his books and realized in the real world.

"But are we sure that this thing will fly?" asked Virginia, who had had the unfortunate honour of being the designated pilot.

"Don't worry, it'll work." Aina reassured her. "Her Highness has been working on it for months. She has already tested it, too, and we all saw it fly-"

"Sure, with a cat! But unlike them, I don't have nine lives!"

"You can always change your mind." Tolstoj supplied, looking at the gap from the northern walls, from where she would have to jump. "I sure wouldn't blame you."

"Change my mind? Never!" was the answer, curt but not without some hidden worry, of the girl.

On Nonna's advice, who had been told by Katyusha, the young spy freed herself from everything that could slow her down or compromise her ability to stay airborne, beginning from her hood. Then, after placing her kukri in a special pocket, she prepared for takeoff.

"Here, take this." said Nonna, offering a leather belt with a dozen grenades tied on it. "They arm themselves as soon as you take them out, and go off after three seconds, so be careful, or you'll end up flying a bit higher than intended."

"Of course. No pressure, right?"

The glider was taken up by two soldiers by the wings, and Virginia, going under it, carried it with them up to the walls' edge, standing there for a moment with her heart jumping up and down at the sight of the nothingness below her.

"According to the Grand Duchess, the glider won't fly very long, so don't waste time trying to hit all the targets and go straight for your objective." Nonna reminded her one last time. "Keep in mind, it has to be a flagship."

"Sure I get that. But keep in mind yourself, that if I end up crashing down there I'll come from beyond the grave to haunt you and that raving lunatic that is your mistress."

With that, shelving her fears away, Virginia took a few steps back, then, with no more hesitations, jumped.

The glider went down like a rock for a few yards, and then rose back up with the same quickness thanks to a providential gust of wind, that took it and its pilot above the fort's flagpole.

"I can't believe this!" Virginia let out, shocked. "It's really working! I'm really flying!"

The battle noise below returned her to reality, though, and maneuvering just like she had been taught, the girl began gliding down, finding herself over the enemy fleet.

The seamen and Royal Marines at first couldn't believe their eyes, but when a grenade coming from that weird kind of bird fell right on the quarterdeck of the HMS _Rodney_, taking out in a single blow its captain and several officers, the few that weren't manning the guns took up rifles and began to fire as quickly as they could. Unfortunately, that thing was huge, but also quick as hell, and all they managed was a few holes here or there in the canvas, without taking it down, however; meanwhile, other ships suffered the same fate, losing their commanders by those precise, lethal grenades coming from above, their names written on it.

Virginia would have wished to reach the HMS _Britannia_, still positioned in the middle of the formation and well protected by other sails of the line; however, the damage suffered by the bullets and a change in the wind currents brought the glider away, and the girl realized that she wouldn't have managed to get back before plunging into the water.

Luckily, the change in direction took her right towards the _Ville de Paris_, which could be well recognized in the middle of the French ships because of her admiral's flag. As it was as good as the other, Virginia didn't hesitate further.

Seeing her coming, the French sharpshooters fired everything they got, until a lucky shot managed to cleanly cut the left wing, just as Virginia was about to drop her last grenade; the glider began to spin out of control and drop, but just as the French had thought they had taken her out, she, abandoning the contraption, came down onto the deck like the Angel of Death.

The enemies were so astonished that the girl was able to take a few out without them being able to defend themselves in the least; afterwards, fighting her way through bayonets and close calls, she reached in four leaps the quarterdeck, wrapping herself around Admiral Hamelin and placing the dagger at his throat.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you." she said, in an almost childish tone, to the soldiers and the officers that were aiming their guns at them, showing in her other hand the grenade she still had in her belt. "I'm warning you, if this toy falls down, we'll all go to have a nice little talk with the Maker. So, pretty please, could you put down your arms?"

"You're mad." said Hamelin. "Are you willing to die to fulfill your mission?"

"Don't remind me. I'm still asking myself how in blazes I got talked into this. But since I began this, I might as well finish it as well. So? I'm still waiting."

The soldiers hesitated, but in the end, also thanks to the admiral's 'encouragement0, they obeyed.

"Now, Admiral. If you'd be a dear and order your fleet to surrender, you'd be doing a most pleasant thing."

"Are you joking?" Hamelin protested, and for his trouble, he felt the blade of the kukri caress his pale and sweaty skin.

"Do I look like someone who is making a joke?" replied Virginia, with an ice-cold tone and bloodied eyes.

The admiral gritted his teeth, cursing his impotence and his attachment to life.

If he had been a man of the tales of old, he would have died to fulfill his duty to the end; instead, while he had always believed otherwise, he had never truly been such a man.

"D-do as she says." he told his astonished and powerless officers.

And thus, all of a sudden, the colors of the _Ville de Paris_ were struck, and, among the general wonder, replaced by a signal ordering the fleet to do the same.

The surviving flag officers and captains for a moment refused to believe it, also because the flagship hadn't suffered such damages that could mean something had happened to the admiral; but in the end, forced to obey. Lowering their sails and coming to a stop, one after another they struck, under the shocked eyes of their British allies.

"I can't believe this!" Dundas wheezed. "The French are surrendering!"

Hamelin was so worn out and humiliated that he would have welcomed death, and nevermore he would have imagined that he would have assisted to such a humiliating defeat, especially from such a different enemy.

"False surrenders, threats to the commanders in chief to make their men surrender, officers used as targets." he growled. "Your General is a honorless creature!"

"Old fart." was Virginia's glacial comment. "Do you really think you're living in which honor means anything? Wars must be won, no matter what."

* * *

The situation by then was crystal clear.

The French had thrown in the towel, the fleet was scattered and fired upon all around them; on the shore, there was no redoubts that wasn't feeling the pressure, attacked from both sides by a mass of excited lunatics that had decided to put before their own lives their commitment to their new goddess.

Raglan had sworn, as he was fleeing from Balaklava, that he would never take off his cap again for that little girl.

And yet, he was aware that he had been one of the main contributors to that defeat. The thought of having been deceived by that snake, who had managed to get into his mind and read his thoughts without even seeing him in person, made him feel like a puppet, who had danced all along for her without even realizing it.

On one hand, he hated her; for her unscrupulous and brutal tactics, for her determination, and for her seeming consideration for warfare as nothing more than a chess match in which she could show off her superior ability, with no regard for ethics or sportsmanship.

But yet, as much as he loathed to admit it, he admired her; she was the commander under which any soldier would have wished to serve, brilliant and straightforward, and looking at her the General couldn't help but feel that he was looking at the future of warfare. A future in which only one decision out of the box would have upturned the fate of several empires.

Dundas came up to him, deathly pale.

"General, it's over. We have to surrender, as long as we can."

"Admiral Dundas." said Raglan, his eyes still fixed on the enemy flagship. "Let us pray that that little girl never becomes queen."

"My lord?!"

"Because if, in the future, she would manage to sit on the throne of a great power... May God have mercy on us all."

A few minutes later, filling everyone, be it British or Russian, with shock, the HMS _Britannia_ struck, and five gunshots were the signal for everybody, on the shore as well, that the battle was over.

It took a few seconds for everybody to realize that; and like the walls of Jericho, those of Sevastopol as well, after holding for months against shells and countless assaults, almost went down because of the screams that came all at once.

* * *

As they returned to port, the ships found all the inhabitants there, and for the whole day, as General Liprandi and Admiral Nachimov formally accepted the surrender of the enemy forces, Sevastopol became nothing more than the location of a huge celebration.

Dances and songs continued throughout the night, wine and vodka flowed like rivers, and all the food available was promptly destroyed.

The impossible had happened. Two mere battles had managed to turn the tide of a war whose course had looked but written.

The time for politics and decisions would come tomorrow, what mattered now was celebrating.

Nonna and Olga, surrounded by jubilant soldiers, showed off in the Cossack sword-dance in the court before the Church of St. Nicholas, with the future Queen of Württemberg demonstrating skills that nobody could have guessed.

Virginia, discarding the role of spy, dedicated herself to food and drink, but she didn't forget to toast the memory of her mentor, which she imagined watching her from above, likely with his trademark smirk on his face.

To the celebrations assisted, from the sidelines, Prince Aleksandr too, leaning from the window of his quarters in the Governor's palace, a bit worse for the wear after all those bombardments, but still standing.

There was wonder and disbelief in his gaze; he himself would have never expected to look at such a conclusion for a nightmare that had lasted months, in which he had seriously feared for his own life.

Almost resignedly, as an old soldier looking at the end of something for which he had fought, to the point of forgetting about everything else, he turned towards his desk, raising the light of his lamp a bit, before sitting down to write his usual contribution to his diary.

The door behind him squeaked a little bit, but he wasn't fazed.

"Why aren't you out there taking part in the feast, brother?" asked Katyusha, taking a few steps forwards.

"Feasts were never my forte, as you should know." he answered without taking his eyes off the diary. "Congratulations, though. As of today, you're officially the greatest heroine of this nation."

"I merely did my duty. Protecting Russia is my duty as much as it yours."

"Undoubtedly."

"And that's why there's only one thing left to do."

A sharp noise was heard, like a mechanism being set off, and it stopped cold the Prince's hand, with ink staining the white page. Turning around, what he saw was his sister Ekaterina with her loaded gun aimed towards him.

"Prince Aleksandr, as of now, you are under arrest."


	25. Chapter 25

25

If the whole city was celebrating, and even the newly freed ships kept launching fireworks without pause, there was somebody who wasn't enjoying himself in that pandemonium. Not anymore, at least.

Nonna had long since learned to trust her gut feelings.

And what her guts had been telling her from a few minutes was far from positive. Ever since the Russian fleet had returned to the pier she hadn't been able to meet up with Katyusha, not even once.

At first she had thought that she didn't want to be found, preferring to savor the victory from the peace and quiet of some hiding place, but when nobody, not even her commanders, had been able to tell her where she had gone, that was when the worry inside her had begun to rise at an alarming pace.

She looked for her everywhere, from her old headquarters to the storerooms, up to the hold of the flagship.

"Hey, Lev." she said, when she bumped into Tolstoj, rather tipsy but still able to answer her. "Have you seen the General?"

"The General? I just saw her a few minutes ago. She was going towards His Highness' quarters."

"His Highness' quarters?!"

The last months of her life went past Nonna's eyes in a few heartbeats, and that ill feeling turned into holy terror.

"My God!" she wailed, running away.

* * *

Brother and sister stared at each other with no words being exchanged for quite a long time, with Aleksandr looking somewhat weirded out but not that surprised; not as much as one would usually be, upon being held at gunpoint by his very sister.

"Might I know what do you think you're doing?" he said, calmly and without a trace of fear.

"Precisely what I said, brother." replied Katyusha in the same way. "I am arresting you."

"Might I inquire as to the reason why?"

"For high treason and consorting with the Empire's enemies. But the list is rather long."

"Would it mean anything if I told you I haven't got the slightest idea of what you're talking about? Have you forgotten? I am the Tsesarevitch. For what reason should I conspire against an Empire that is to be mine one day?"

"You might, if it were to make things quicker for you. We both known that our father might reign for many years still. Perhaps longer than what you can tolerate."

Aleksandr gritted his teeth under his moustache.

"Your accusations are rather serious, little sister. Maybe even too much, for someone who has thrown her own honor to the wolves and stained for God knows how long Russia's reputation before the whole world."

"Never as much as you, someone who sold out to our enemies.

I am quite sure that there's your hand behind my kidnapping attempt as well, isn't there?"

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't you ask your handmaid about that?"

"Nonna was just a tool in that. She, like many others that you manipulated. But I've long asked myself how that dapper Scotsman had managed to reach the foot of the Kremlin with no issue. Our father had turned paranoid after your departure, and the surveillance in Moscow had been trebled. Only someone with great knowledge about the secret passages and the hidden coves of the Moskva might have told him what was the only free route, or give them the necessary papers. All things considered, you are in no position to preach about honor."

"There are many people who know about those passages. What makes you think that it was me who told them? A good enemy agent is more than able to find them on his own."

"The truth is within." said Katyusha after taking a deep breath-

"What?!"

"Since this whole mess started, I kept thinking over the words of that fire-eater Padre Ansaldi, or whatever his true name was. Now I get that he had realized it all. He had understood that there had to be a traitor among us. Maybe when he talked about 'within', he meant somebody very close to the Tsar, because even he couldn't guess that we'd have to look inside our very family."

"Even if you were right, say, if your mentor hadn't thought of me as a potential traitor, what reason could you have for doubting me?"

"The attack that your British friends mustered against us at Balaklava. I asked a few things to General Liprandi; the operation had been kept a close-guarded secret to the last, even the soldiers ignored where they were going. Only someone very close to our father and his advisors could know everything in such detail: how many troops, where they were going, even the rough date of arrival."

"You amaze me, little sister. I don't have to remind you that the court is the realm of gossip. In a way or another, the thing could have leaked."

"And that's why a discreet rumor about an imminent increase in activity in the Caucasus operations had been floated."

This time, the Prince's eyes bulged, betraying his shock.

"What?!"

"An idea of General Gorčakov. I had heard of that myself. General Liprandi confirmed it; your hurry to get into the enemy's good graces was your mistake.

Go on, then. Tell me I'm wrong, if you can."

A new, long silence ensued, almost as if everything in that room had been frozen in place, immobile in time and without the slightest noise.

Then, to Katyusha's own surprise, an almost amused smirk appeared on the face of his beloved brother, followed by a shrug.

"At this point, I guess it would be pointless and childish to deny the facts."

"I thought I meant something to you, brother. And yet you didn't hesitate to give me up to the British."

"If it means anything, I had had specific guarantees that you wouldn't have been touched. It was the indispensable condition to get my support, and that of the others."

"Others?!"

"Do you honestly believe that this one before you is the lone traitor? You can't even imagine how many people in our country would be more than happy to see our father ousted from the throne.

They came to me asking for help, and I agreed to that."

"The Uigur assassins, the kidnapping. Even the assassination of Mr. Parson. All your doing?"

"The Uigurs were your maid's idea. About Parson... he had begun to raise inopportune questions, and he had discovered our interference in the arrivals of the American weapons."

Katyusha dearly loved her brother, like few other people in the other world, and yet the rage she felt right then was pretty much boundless.

"All this for a crown? Was your ambition so great?"

"Ambition?!" thundered Aleksandr with the same vehemence, almost insulted. "Do you actually believe that I have done all this, betrayed my family and endangered you, for something so petty?"

"What?!" let out the girl, her eyes going wide.

"I respected and honored our father as well as any other son. But as much as I can love him, I am and remain a prince of Russia, and I cannot allow my personal feelings to overcome what I feel it's best for my nation!"

"I don't see how conspiring against the Tsar qualifies as being the best for the nation!"

"Don't you see? But you have to! Take a look around! Look at what we're turning into! We're victims of the ego of a man anchored to a dying age! The world is marching towards new conquests, and it's not acceptable to remain behind just because the Tsar is unable to accept the changes that cannot be denied!"

At that, a light shone in Katyusha's eyes, as she remembered the evening in which everything had began, in the dining room of the palace. The words that her brother was saying were pretty much the same that she had thrown at their father.

Her armed hand trembled for a moment, but she didn't waver-

"Our father's ambition dragged us into this hell." continued Aleksandr. "All this wouldn't have happened if he had been just a bit far-sighted. Something he never was, but that nobody who calls himself a leader cannot not be. He still believes that everything will be solved over gunfire. That's why I had to do what I did. So that everyone could see what kind of man he could be."

Katyusha all but needed that to realize the great scheme that had brought her there.

"The kidnapping..." she whispered in a broken, pained voice. "It was just a pretext. You had me kidnapped... so to strike at him-"

"Believe me, I long hesitated before going along with this plan. Involving and endangering you was the true last resort for me. I never actually believed he would have accepted to negotiate; had he done so, if he had sacrificed the city and the conflict for you, he would have lost the support of the military men who are always going on about him. Instead, everyone would have seen him as he really is: a warmonger, capable of throwing away his very family to win a war!"

"Thousands of people died because of your scheming, brother. Don't you care for any of them?"

"Less than what are doomed to die each day this war goes on. And I'm not just talking about Sevastopol, about the Caucasus or the Danube. Have you ever peeked out of the palace, little sister? Have you seen in which conditions wallows our country? The glorious empire always on the tip of our tongues is an immense slum. The countryside is filled with serfs who work themselves to death, ambitious and faithless governors who steal everything they can, and while we squeeze the poor for every tax we can, the eggheads at Saint Petersburg fatten up their horses.

I love my father, but I love Russia first and foremost! And I couldn't keep on sitting there and look at her rot! And if, for the greater good, I have to cover myself of infamy and scheme against my family, so be it! It's a price I'm willing to pay!"

"Stop it!"

Katyusha's scream, broken by sobs, silenced the prince instantly, and almost broke his heart as he saw his sister glaring at him, trembling and with shining eyes.

"What you did may seem justified to you, but I don't care what reasons you could have. Betrayal remains such, no matter what."

"I don't rejoice in what I did, little sister. But I don't regret it either. The love for Russia spurred me to do that, nothing else. I would happily renounce the throne if I could get in exchange the promise that I would see my nation strong once and for all. But maybe you won't be able to believe me. I wouldn't blame you."

Katyusha took a few steps forwards, her pistol always aimed at her brother, but with the hand quivering so much that Aleksandr thought that a shot could be fired at any moment.

Then, as if her emotions had been shut down on command, the fragile and meek Grand Duchess disappeared, and was replaced once more by General Katyusha, who had just humiliated the two greatest armies of the whole world.

"You might as well know, I just received some news from Moscow. Our father is dying."

"What?!" the Prince let out, astonished.

"A rider told me a few hours' ago. His lung issues have taken a turn for the worse. He'll live for now, but it's likely he has mere months left."

Aleksandr took a few seconds to realize that he had done the worst thing a prince could have ever done for nothing, and the weight of such realization was such that he almost fell on his knees.

"But, in any case, it's not up to me to judge you. He will take care of that."

Luckily, the desperation hadn't completely deprived the Prince of his eye and of his reflexes; only because of that he managed to glimpse, in the corridor behind the door, an incoming threat.

"Look out!" he shouted, and as he pushed his sister away a gunshot echoed everywhere.

Fortunately, the shot went wide, with no greater damage than a scratch in Aleksandr's shoulder.

Katyusha, whose conflicting emotions had dulled her senses, was clueless, at least until she saw her brother kneeling on the floor, his uniform bloodied.

"Brother!"

"Don't move!" thundered a familiar voice.

Automatically, the girl acquiesced, and turning towards the door her gaze met that of Lord Cardigan, clad in a Russian warrant officer uniform, standing right by the entrance with a revolver aimed at her.

In his eyes there was no determination nor dedication; only hate. A hate that scared Katyusha to no small degree, well aware of what such a man could do.

"Drop your weapon, and kick it away." he ordered her, and she immediately accommodated him.

"It's over, Lord Cardigan. Lord Raglan and Admiral Dundas surrendered, and the siege is over. You can still save your honor if you stop right now."

"Honor?" he growled, his face purple with rage. "What honor? I have nothing left; and you were the one who took it away!"

As consumed by anger as he was, Cardigan was still lucid enough to be aware of his surroundings to a degree; that's how he managed to avoid Nonna's sabre, who appeared behind her and almost cut off his arm.

He tried to shoot her, but the girl with another blow ripped the weapon out of his hands; with that, Cardigan too drew his sword, beginning a ferocious duel to which Katyusha, frozen in place and in disbelief, could only be a spectator of.

Despite being past his prime Cardigan proved a master swordsman, enough to be more of a match for someone like Nonna, who was almost immediately forced on the defensive.

Her weariness, compounded by having run through half the city in a few minutes, soon became apparent, and as she parried a blow the girl stumbled, her side dangerously exposed; Cardigan, taking advantage, tried a decisive lunge, but with dazzling speed Nonna was able to sidestep and, with a well-aimed kick, to push him away, his sword clattering to the floor to boot.

The Earl stumbled backwards, barely able to stand, and even before he could thing about resuming the duel his eyes noticed something on the floor; on the other hand, Nonna had come out of the last clash with an almost broken ankle, and thus she didn't get what was happening until she lifted her gaze and saw Cardigan brandishing Katyusha's gun, aimed at her chest.

"Nonna!"

In an instant that seemed to stretch for a whole lifetime, Nonna was barely able to glimpse something obscuring the sight of the pistol right before it fired; afterwards, what she saw was Katyusha at her feet, on a side and motionless, on the wooden floor that was slowly turning red.

"Katyusha!"

If Nonna was quick to get to her knee and scoop Katyusha onto her arms, Cardigan and Aleksandr were rooted to their spots, unable to say anything or move. And, unfortunately for the former, the Prince was the first to recover.

"You bastard!" he screamed at the top of his lings, and disregarding any rule or custom he lunged towards Cardigan, slashing open his chest with a single blow from his sword, and dropping him dead.

With that, as soon as he regained a tiny bit of self-control, he too ran to see for himself the conditions of her sister in Nonna's arms.

Katyusha was still and barely conscious; the bullet had struck her right in the chest, blood pouring out of the wound and her mouth and staining everything red, and Nonna's attempts to blot it were for naught.

"Sister!"

Only then, alerted by the noise, a pair of guards deigned to show up; with them there were Tolstoj and Olga as well, who were left speechless by what they saw.

"General!"

"Katyusha!"

"What are you waiting for, call for a doctor! Now!" ordered an enraged Prince to the guards, who ran away before they could even fully comprehend what was happening.

"Katyusha!" Nonna kept ranting. "Please, hold on!"

With a great struggle, Katyusha opened her eyes, looking around with slow bursts of movement.

"N-Nonna..." she said, coughing up blood. "Are you alright?"

"Katyusha... why did you do that? I didn't deserve that."

At that, the lips of the Grand Duchess curled into a smile; maybe, she was the first to realize how it would end.

"Don't cry..." she said, still smiling. "We... we won... that's what matters."

"Little sister, you have to hold on." said Olga, holding her hand. "The doctor is coming. Stay with us."

"I'm afraid... it's going to be dif-difficult..." Then she turned towards Aleksandr, who almost turned away from her out of shame. "Brother..."

"Forgive me, Ekaterina. Forgive me."

But she, with difficulty, raised her hand towards her brother, who instinctively held it among his.

"I leave Russia... in your hands... take care of her..."

"Don't say that, sister. You'll make it. We'll lead Russia together."

She smirked.

"I would have... liked that."

A violent spasm cut what was left of her breath, and when she could open her eyes again, everyone couldn't say a word out of wonder at how much light was inside them.

It was not the light of oblivion, or the dimming lights of death; it was the light of a fearless spirit.

Katyusha began to feel strange, while everything around her was becoming unfocused. It was the same feeling she had felt so many times in her dreams; and yet now, unlike the past, she wasn't afraid, or worried.

Quite the opposite.

She turned towards Nonna, who had held onto her hand the whole time.

"Do you think... I might live my dream... now?"

"Yes." Nonna replied, her eyes and her cheeks filled with tears. "And it will be a beautiful dream; the best you have ever had."

It was what she wanted to hear.

With an almost reassured expression, Katyusha let go, allowing the light that was coming from everywhere around her to claim her for itself.

"Katyusha..." she heard when she was plunged into an endless void of whiteness. "Katyusha!"


	26. Chapter 26

EPILOGUE

The first thing she noticed, even before her eyes fluttered open, was a sharp, sterile smell, quite hospital-like.

Slowly, she managed to part her eyelids, but her eyes had been shut for so long that at first all she could glimpse were rough coloured shapes, that gradually, with a bit of an effort, began to turn into a hospital room.

She tried to move, but her body refused, as if numb because of a stay that had been ongoing since who knew how much, or maybe because of what they had pumped her full with. All she could move, at a price of a huge effort, was her head, so she began to turn it left and right, seeking a reference point to help her understand where she was.

Meanwhile, her ears began to work once more as well, allowing her to hear some noises, muffled to begin with, then more and more clear; the squeaking of a loudspeaker, the chattering of medics and nurses in the hallway, the chirping of birds coming from the park outside the open window.

A shape with its back on her was sitting at the small table near the door, busy peeling an apple. But she didn't need to look at her face to recognize her.

Her weakened vocal cords managed to let out only a squeaking whisper.

"Nonna..."

But it was more than enough to get the girl's attention, who froze for a moment, the knife falling down from her hand and clattering on the tiles.

When at last Nonna turned around, with the most incredulous and shocked expression that had ever seen on her face, Katyusha at once felt better; she loved that faze, and to see her again was what made her the happiest.

"Katyusha-sama..." she said, her eyes bright, before getting a grip of herself and yelling at the top of her lungs: "Doctor, nurse! Come, quickly! Katyusha-sama has woken up!"

Then, Nonna ran to the bed of her commander, and, any kind of reverence shoved aside, tenderly hugged her.

"Thank God, Commander. For a while I really feared you would never wake up."

"Nonna... what happened?"

"There was an accident. You fell in the sea, do you remember?"

"Vaguely."

"You fell into a coma for almost six months. They told us that the chances for you to wake up were slim at best. But in my heart I always knew you would come back, sooner or later."

Noticing the disorientated edge in the eyes of her commander, Nonna let her go, and Katyusha was free to draw her hand on her forehead, as if to ward off some dark thoughts.

"What's wrong, Katyusha-sama?"

"I was... dreaming."

"What were you dreaming about?"

"I... don't remember. But I think it was a nice dream."

Finally, after a few minutes, Katyusha was herself once more, just in time for the arrival of the doctor and his intern, both pufffing and shocked as much as Nonna at her being awake; they both looked familiar, with him austere-looking, around forty years old, her being twenty years her junior, with red hair tied up in a bun and giving a cheeky vibe, and yet Katyusha couldn't remember knowing them.

"Where am I?" she asked, as the doctor shone a rather fastidious light in her eyes.

"Anzio." he answered, before completing that quick analysis and passing his judgement. "No trace of alterations or visible damage. Which is quite surprising, considering the fall she suffered."

"But what am I doing in Anzio?"

"This is a specialized structure for trauma treatment. Although, if I have to be honest, I had more than a few doubts that you would ever wake up. I guess you ought to thank my niece Chiyomi, for being so stubborn in insisting and convincing me to get you transferred here."

"Chiyomi?! Then you are..."

"I'm her uncle. Anzai Giuseppe. And before you ask me, yes, it's my real name. I was born in Italy, after all."

"Little girl, you are literally made of steel." burst in the intern, glancing at her with her green eyes filled with life. "When they took you here you were a hair's breath away from death, and look at you now. You don't even look like somebody who just got out of a coma."

"Enough of that, Vittoria." the doctor admonished her. "Please forgive my protege. Sometimes she forgets she's no longer in high school."

After a while, the doctor and his assistant left, not before promising a slew of tests in the next few days to ascertain the lack of side effects or other damage; and just as they were leaving, from the wide open door Clara came in as well, who almost burst into joyful tears at the sight of Katyusha awake at last.

"Commander." she said, running towards the bed.

At her sight, Katyusha felt something really weird, almost a deja-vu, that made her lips almost work on their own.

"Olga?"

"Olga?!" Clara said, exchanging a befuddled glance with Nonna. "Commander, I'm Clara. Don't you recognize me?"

"Clara...?"

Everything was so strange that Katyusha was hard pressed at following it all, and at one point she almost asked herself where she was, as if everything that surrounded her were not real.

Vehemently, she willed those pesky and stupid thoughts away; if anything that had happened, or was happening, one thing was the same: she was herself, and that was that. And yet that didn't mean that she could will away that strange pressure in her chest, once more, together with the urge to say something that she herself didn't know the sense of.

"This is my world."

"What?!" said Nonna, thoroughly baffled.

"And now, c'mon, let's hear it! What happened while I was away? I really hope that those good-for-nothings didn't take advantage of this to rest on their laurels!"

* * *

The tests all turned out negative, luckily, ascertaining the lack of any trauma and the pretty much unchanged resumption of the normal cerebral activity, which shocked to a degree the medics themselves.

It wasn't the first time that somebody recovered smoothly and completely after months in a coma, but surely that recovery had something just short of miraculous, especially considering that for a long time the trauma had been deemed so severe that at times the proposal to pull the plug was seriously considered.

Despite that, and ignoring the attempts of the doctors to convince her otherwise, Katyusha refused any notion of taking baby steps, and two weeks after waking up she was ready to get out of there.

The Winter Cup was looming on the horizon, and she wanted to get there with a team in tip-top shape; also, she had plenty of new ideas on how to revisit her old battle tactics, a few of them quite unorthodox ones, but if carefully considered they had the potential to shake things up a little and net them a few wins, and she couldn't wait to try them out in training.

And yet, there was something that kept bothering her.

She was almost sure that she had been dreaming all the time during which, as the doctors claimed, she had been unconscious, but as much as she tried she couldn't quite discern the content of her dreams. There were only vague pictures, short flashes of indistinct moments, of which only a few fragments without much sense could be glimpsed, but all sharing a lone element: the absurdity.

She saw shining palaces, worthy of a princess, old-fashioned dresses, rituals and bows; but also battles, engagements, ships, cannons, to her much more familiar, but nonetheless just as paradoxical.

When she had mentioned them to Doctor Anzai, he had told her that for the people in a coma it was quite normal to make rather vivid dreams, so much so that they looked real for the duration, but that disappeared in the infinite folds of the unconscious upon awakening, like any other dream.

But had it been really just a dream?

Something, Katyusha felt as if the world she was living in were the product of a dream: ships as large as cities, little girls manning tanks and trucks. All things considered, the few images that she could remember looked, absurdly enough, more realistic of what she saw everyday around her, and that had looked so perfectly normal and obvious before.

Trying not to mull over it, in a late fall morning Katyusha packed her things and, taking her leave from the doctor and his intern, followed Nonna and Clara towards the exit. And yet, even as she walked through the hospital's hallways, she could almost make out familiar faces in the janitor, in the old crabby man in the nearby room, in the young and dapper doctor with a curled moustache, or in the loving lady that kept a continuous vigil on her daughter, near the entrance of the ward. As if she knew, in her heart, who they were, almost to the point of being able to call them by name, even though she was sure she had never seen them before.

Climbing onto a cab, the three girls were driven towards the small school airport, in which they found a private flight come from Pravda to bring the commander home.

The voyage was a quiet one, maybe even too much for all the things Katyusha had to say, beginning with the new directives that she couldn't wait to communicate to her team; partly because of that, partly because of those thoughts that kept whispering into her hear, the girl spent much of the flight on her own, glancing from time to time towards the Hokkaido mountains out of the window.

At one point, dragging her mind away from her own thoughts, Katyusha noticed Clara reading up a substantial volume visibly in Russian, with a engrossed expression and the happy, vacant gaze of someone who is enjoying a nice story.

"What are you reading?"

"Lev Tolstoj." the young Russian answered, for once bothered enough to speak in Japanese. "The four _Sevastopol Sketches_."

"Four?!" Katyusha commented. "I thought there were three of them."

"Nope, there's four of them. Also, the fourth is by far my favorite."

"Really? What's the title?"

Clara smiled at that, an enigmatic smile that Katyusha couldn't quite decipher.

"_The Princess and the Soldier_."


End file.
